EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT 



EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT 



EDUCATIONAL THEOKY 

VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF 

CONTEMPOEAEY THOUGHT 



M.^V. O'SHEA 

Professor of the Science and Art of Education 
University of Wisconsin 

Author of ^Aspects of Mental Economy,* etc. 



SEVENTH IMPRESSION 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO 

FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 

LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
1912 



UBsrs' 



Copyright, 1003, 

BY 

LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. 



.All rights reserved 



/ 



First edition, November, 1903. 
Second impression, revised, February, 1905; 
Reprinted, January, 1906. 
January, 1907. August, 1907. 
October, 1908. 
September, 1909. 
October, 1910 
August, 1912 



To MY Wife 
HARRIET. 



PEEFACE. 



In this volume I have sought to discuss in a rather 
un technical and popular way the meaning, aim and 
general method of education when viewed from the 
standpoint of contemporary biological, sociological, and 
psychological thought. It has been my purpose to 
interpret for a theory of education principles established 
in several sciences, from which, I think, the education- 
ist must most largely gather the materials for the build- 
ing of his structure. Whatever originality the book pos- 
sesses will be found mainly in the manner in which it 
organizes and interprets data derived from different 
fields of investigation, and I trust it may in this 
respect seem, alike to the scientist and to the practical 
person, to make some slight contribution to a sound 
philosophy of education. 

In Part I. I have thought it desirable to discuss in 
some detail the methods of procedure which will give 
reliable results in the treatment of my subject. I wish 
in this connection to express my belief that the chief 
obstacle to educational progress is now, as it has always 
been, the difficulty of discriminating truth from error 
in the tremendous amount of opinion afloat on tliis 

vii 



VIU PREFACE. 

subject. And the way of salvation lies first of all in 
the establishment of a scientific attitude of mind on 
the part of all who have to do with teaching. Let one 
who does not appreciate this point read some of the 
things that are written on teaching, or attend a few 
educational conventions^ where gather either teachers 
or the laity, and he will have an opportunity to see 
how error is kept alive by people propounding as truth 
mere opinion born of narrow, one-sided, individual 
experience. The greatest need in education to-day is 
the development of the scientific temper among teachers, 
and the adoption of scientific method by all who treat 
of educational questions. 

In explanation of the character of Part III. I must 
say that in my opinion the teacher as such can have 
no interest in formal psychology. He should not be 
required to spend time in learning the classifications 
of mental faculties, or even their description, if they 
are treated, as they so often are in teachers' psycholo- 
gies, as things of the same order as plants or animals or 
stars. The teacher needs to get into the habit of look- 
ing upon the mind as a dynamic agent, all its processes 
being determined by the requirements for dealing most 
economically and efficiently with the world. So it 
has seemed to me the proper thing to present just so 
much of psychology as relates to the work of education, 
and to use terms which would throw emphasis contin- 
ually upon the functional side of mind. If anyone 
should miss the terms and phrases of formal psychology 
he will appreciate that my task has not been to classify 
the faculties of the human mind, but only to suggest 
how it operates in attaining the great end of educa- 
tional endeavor. My chief motive in discussing this 



^ 



* PREFACE. ix 

topic is to try to show that the doctrine of formal train- 
ing, which has gained such a prominent place in educa- 
tional theory and practice, rests upon exceedingly un- 
stable foundations. And I have considered those topics 
only that seemed to relate to this subject, taking the 
genetic point of view which I have adopted in my treat- 
ment. This will explain why imitation and the emotions 
do not occupy a more prominent place. 

It will perhaps be appropriate to add that the pres- 
ent volume is the first of a series on Education which 
I have fairly under way, and it is to a certain extent 
an introduction to later volumes. It will be the aim 
in some of these to apply to the detailed work of 
teaching the doctrines herein expounded. So it has 
seemed to me best to confine my discussion in these 
pages strictly to general principles, leaving matters of 
detail for other occasions. 

It will be apparent to one who reads these pages to 
whom I am principally beholden for the basal notions 
upon which the educational doctrines I have set forth 
are founded. I have drawn freely upon the literature 
of biology and sociology; but the frequency with 
which the names of several of our American psy- 
chologists and educationists appear will indicate that 
I am under greatest obligations to these. They give 
us a conception of human nature which to my mind 
constitutes a firm foundation upon which the educa- 
tionist may build. 

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness especially 
to Professor W. C. Bagley and Professor F. E. Bolton, 
for their kindness in reading the manuscript in a 
careful and critical manner, and for the valuable sug- 



X PREFACE. 

gestions I have received from them. My thanks are 
also due to the Walter Scott Publishing Co., who have 
permitted me to reproduce three illustrations from 
Donaldson's "The Growth of the Brain." 

M. V. O'Shea. 
ML-LDisoN, Wis., July, 1902. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

THE PRESENT STATUS OF EDUCATION AS A 

SCIENCE. 

CHAPTER I. 
The General Character of the Field of Education. 

PAGE 

§ 1. A Glance at the Fields of the Several Sciences 1 

§ 2. The Field of Education 9 

CHAPTER II. 

Effective Method in Education. 

§ 1. The Requirements of Effective Method 14 

§ 2. The Methods Pursued by Educationists of the Past. . 17 
I 3. The Methods of Educationists of Our Own Times 22 

CHAPTER III. 

The Data for a Science of Education. 

§ 1. The Survival of the Fittest in Education 27 

§ 2. Data Derived from Biography 34 

§ 3. Experimentation in Education 36 

§ 4. The Child-study Movement 41 

xi 



xu TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

§ 5. The Evolutionary Point of View 44 

§ 6. The Practical Needs of the Teacher 51 



PART II. 
THE MEANING AND AIM OF EDUCATION. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Aim of Education — Some Common Views, 

§ 1. The Agencies Concerned in Education 57 

§ 2. The Aim of the School 60 

§ 3. The Doctrine of Unfoldment 65 

§ 4. The Doctrine of Formal Discipline 69 

§ 5. The Doctrine of Acquisition 73 

§ 6. The Doctrine of Utility 74 

CHAPTER V. 

The Aim Suggested by Modern Science. 

§ 1. The Modern Conception of the Nature of Life 76 

§ 2. The Aim Suggested by Neurology 78 

§ 3. The Aim Suggested by Present-day Psychology 84 

§ 4. The View of Sociology and Ethics 93 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Implications op Adjustment as the End of Education. 

§ 1. Adjustment as a Process of Recreating Environments. 9.9 

§ 2. The Supreme Aim in Adjustment 104 

§ 3. Varieties of Pleasure in Human Life 108 

CHAPTER VII. 

Adjustment as Affected by Social Organization. 

§ 1. The Necessity of "Classes" in the Social Organism.. 118 
§ 2. The Adjustment of the Different Classes 126 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. Xiu 



CHAPIER VIII. 

The General Effect of Adjustment on Teaching. 

PAGE 

§ 1. The Relation of Adjustment to Other Aims 133 

§ 2. Adjustment and Interest 146 



PART III. 
THE METHOD OF ATTAINING ADJUSTMENT. 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Organization of the Simplest Reaction-systems. 

§ 1. Instinct o . . . 1 54 

§ 2. The First Step in Learning 156 

§ 3. The Learning of Individuals and Classes 166 

§ 4. Developmental Changes Respecting the Characteristics 

Apprehended in Objects . , ,<, 172 

CHAPTER X. 
The Natural History of Certain Typical "Senses." 

§ 1. A Preliminary View , 179 

§ 2. The Sense of Location 180 

§ 3. The Sense of Cause and Effect.. 190 

§ 4. The Sense of Means 194 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Retention and Abridgment of Experience. 

§ 1. Methods of Keeping a Record of Experience 197 

§ 2. The Abridgment of Experience in Learning 210 

§ 3. The Function of Conventional Language 214 



XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Apperception as the Essential Process. 

PAOE 

§ 1. The Method of Apperception 223 

§ 2. Sagacity 233 

§ 3. Syllogistic Reasoning 239 

CHAPTER XIIL 
The Doctrine of Formal Discipline. 

§ 1. Exposition of the Doctrine. 246 

§ 2, The Doctrine in the Light of Every-day Experience . . 248 
§ 3. The Development of Power by Formal Training , . » . 256 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Doctrine of Formal Discipline (Concluded). 

§ 1. The Effects of Excessive Special Training 266 

§ 2. The Development of Methods of Thinking by Formal 

Training 268 

§ 3, The Establishment of Mental Habits by Formal 

Training 275 

CHAPTER XV. 

Conclusion 284 

Bibliography 297 

Index 309 



EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 



PAET I. 



THE PRESENT STATUS OF EDUCATION AS 
A SCIENCE, 



CHAPTER I. 

THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE FIELD OP 

EDUCATION. 

§ I. A Glance at the Fields of the Several Sciences. 

1. If one were to undertake a discussion of geom- 
etry he would probably have clearly in mind the 
general character and the boundaries of his subject. 
He would know quite definitely what phenomena he 
ought to examine in the attempt to relate them to 
one another in a systematic, co-ordinated manner. 
He would understand, too, what method of procedure 
in handling his theme would be capable of yielding 
genuinely reliable results, so that his exposition would 
be a faithful account of those aspects of the world that 
he set out to describe. He would, further, have prac- 



2 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

tical means of determining the validity of his findings, 
for in the simpler phases of his subject he could test 
his principles concretely, showing in this way, with 
sufficient accuracy to lead to conviction, that a straight 
line is the shortest distance between two points, that 
the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is equal to 
two right angles, and so on. In the most intricate 
parts of his investigation he could satisfy himself of 
the truth of any proposition by ascertaining if it was 
founded logically upon propositions already shown to 
be true, taking it for granted that logical thought is 
an accurate representation of the order of things in 
the world with which he deals. 

Again, if one were to treat of physics he would find 
his field marked out for him quite clearly, and he would 
be able to employ trustworthy methods of investiga- 
tion and of verification of principles. He would start 
with the assurance that the part of the world assigned 
to him for examination could be described in precise 
terms made intelligible through the experiences of 
daily life, and his aim would be to give an account 
of all the phenomena in his department in these 
terms. In pursuing his inquiry he would pro- 
duce the phenomena he desired to study under con- 
ditions which would permit him to apply some familiar 
standard of measurement to them. In general his 
method would consist in first isolating as fully as he 
could his particular facts from all other facts with 
which they are combined in a bewildering way in 
nature, and then he would experiment with them 
under varying circumstances, so that he could see how 
they operated in different situations. He would 
classify them according as they behaved in similar 



THE FIELD OF EDUCATION. 3 

ways under similar conditions, and he would offer 
these classifications as the principles of his science. 
The stud}^ of natural phenomena, or more briefly the 
study of Nature, as Morgan has said/ consists mainly 
in classifying phenomena, reducing them to order, 
and then giving to the groups of facts thus ordered 
their simplest expression in what are termed the laws 
of nature. 

2. It must not be thought, of course, that the 
physicist has ever investigated or ever can inves- 
tigate all the phenomena in his special field in this 
exact manner. Some at least of his propositions are 
but inferences based upon conclusions he has reached 
in his examination of facts kindred to those covered 
by the inferences. The books on physics make uni- 
versal statements about heat and light and gravita- 
tion that can never be, so far as we can now tell, demon- 
strated in a universal way, and these must be regarded 
as simply hypothetical, as Jevons ^ points out. Who 
has ever shown by conclusive experiment that light 
travels everywhere at the rate of 300,000 kilometers 
(approximately) per second? We will be told, it is 
true, that Roemer and Bradley and Fizeau and Fou- 
cault proved this by different methods, and it 7nust 
be true; but still we ask — Have these brilliant in- 
vestigators, or any others, before or since their time, 
measured the velocity of light under all possible con- 
ditions existing everywhere in the universe? Or have 
they simply drawn a tremendous deduction from a 
few highly probable facts respecting the action of 
light in the laboratory, and between the sun and the 

^ The Springs of Conduct, p. 68. 

2 Principles of Science, Vol. II., Book IV., p. 432. 



4 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

planet Jupiter, and the earth and some of the distant 
stars? It is needless to say that we believe this propo- 
sition and others like it, but it is not because of com- 
plete experimental demonstration that we have faith 
in it. It is rather because we are so constituted that 
we must proceed upon the assumption that nature 
is uniform in her processes at all times and unto the 
remotest corners of the universe, and certain prin- 
ciples true here and now must under similar conditions 
be equally true everywhere and to the end of time. ^ 

3. If now one goes from geometry and physics over 
into the field of biology he finds his territory is not very 
definitely marked off from that of his neighbors; the 
boundary lines at any rate are in dispute. The physi- 
cist and chemist and psychologist declare that they are 
entitled to a portion of what he may have supposed be- 
longed exclusively to him; and if he accedes to the de- 
mands of each of these, and other claimants besides, 
it is doubtful if he will have much left. Even if he 
can get his plot fenced off, he is not so fortunate as his 
fellow-workers in having a well-tested and effective 
mode of cultivating it in order to produce a good crop. 
Compared with the fields of geometry and physics the 
constitution of the soil in this one is not so fully 
understood. A vastly greater number of elementary 
substances enter into its composition, and it is not so 
evident at first glance, or perhaps even after long exami- 
nation, just how this complex thing should be treated. 

The subjects of biological study, as we commonly 
think of them, are the resultants of chemical and physi- 
cal and perhaps psychical forces operating together in 

* Cf. Pearson, in The Grammar of Science, p. 15. 



THE FIELD OF EDUCATION. 5 

a most involved way. And it is not an easy task to 

separate these factors from their familiar associates and 
investigate them under varying conditions/ as can be 
done readily in the physical laboratory. Then, too, on 
account of the principle of variation, which gets a chance 
to work in biology, where new individuals are appearing 
and old ones disappearing all the time, there can be 
stated but few propositions relating to the nature, the 
modes of conduct, and the needs of living things which 
will have validity without qualification in all instances 
to which they are intended to apply. We declare, 
without the least fear of contradiction, that everything 
that lives must breathe and obtain nutrition; but when 
we get to details in the matter of respiration or diet we 
find that principles must be quahfied in their applica- 
tion to groups or individuals. But we all believe there 
is no such diversity as this in the operations of inorganic 
nature. For example, we all agree that a stone would 
in a given amount of time fall a given distance, whether 
it be released in America or in Europe or in South Africa, 
and this is typical of all the propositions of physics. 

4. Wlien one attacks the higher branches of biology, so- 
ciology ^ for instance, he finds to his dismay of ttimes that 
his field is still less clearly defined, and the right mode of 

1 Of course a part of the biological field is amenable to definite 
treatment in a geometrical and physical fashion, — the quantita- 
tive part, that which relates to the number and size of objects, 
their subdivisions, and the mechanical properties of organs, for 
example. 

' As this is passing through the press, I have seen Baldwin's 
Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, where sociology is not 
included among the biological sciences (see Vol. I., p. 119). 
But it is so regarded by many writers. The point is not ma- 
terial, however, to our present discussion. 



6 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

investigation still more debatable. If it be said that 
sociology should concern itself with all the phenomena 
of society, as Ely ^ maintains, then it may be answered 
that it is not absolutely certain what is meant by society, 
or where it begins in the biological scale, or whether all 
activities whatsoever of human beings are to be included 
in this study, as Dewey ^ leads us to infer. Again, it is 
not clear whether the sociologist should confine his efforts 
to delineating things as they are, or whether he should 
also point out the goal that society ought to keep in view, 
and give instructions regarding the manner of attain- 
ing thereunto most speedily and comfortably. Surely 
sociologists have undertaken this larger task — to be 
teachers as well as narrators and systematizers and 
explainers of social phenomena. But have they gone 
beyond the limits of their province when they have 
acted the part of prophets and moralists, and, in the 
light of what is, have indicated what should and 
probably could be ? 

The physicist never attempts to say what ought to 
be. He tells his story of what he finds now to be true, 
and men must make the application to their own daily 
lives if they so choose. Clifford goes outside the scope 
of a science like physics when he says that it is not 
only the getting of knowledge but the using of it to guide 
the actions of men. Does the mathematician, pure and 

^ Introduction to Political Economy, pt. 1, chap. 1, p. 13 
(Chautauqua Series, 1889). See, too, the statement in the 
Century Dictionary. 

2 See his "My Educational Creed," in Educational Creeds 
of the Nineteenth Century, where he bases his educational 
doctrines upon the view that every act of the individual has 
Bome social reference. Many men appear to be taking this 
view to-day. 



THE FIELD OF EDUCATION. 7 

simple, pay any heed to the utihty of the principles he 
seeks to establish? He never permits the question of 
what can or ought to be done to engage his attention; 
if he did he would find himself confronted by far more 
difficult problems than he ordinarily encounters. The 
botanist as a scientist is never troubled by the practical 
questions of what his plants ought to be made to do, or 
how they can be made to do it. His is the much 
simpler task of observing what transpires before his 
eyes, and interpreting it with reference to principles 
already demonstrated, or of establishing new prin- 
ciples. 

But there are probably few botanists who restrict 
themselves in this way. Whatever logic may say re- 
garding the precise limits of any investigator's prov- 
ince, still the needs of humanity crowd in upon him 
all the time, and he cannot avoid becoming adviser. 
The botanist does not leave all matters practical to 
the horticulturist or the farmer, nor does the sociolo- 
gist leave to the statesman and the legislator and the 
politician all suggestions regarding the course which 
society should pursue. But this carries them into re- 
gions where the highways are obscure and the direc- 
tions are confused, so that it is uncertain where they 
will come out. They enter a realm where the attain- 
ment of exactness of the mathematical sort is impos- 
sible by any methods of searching known to-day. 
Even in the elementary parts of their work they can 
only approximate to absolute -certitude, for the reason 
that even here the phenomena to be handled are so 
very complex, every factor collaborating with many 
others, that it seems utterly beyond human in- 
genuity to subject them to such minute analysis, 



8 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

and apply to them such exact standards of measure- 
ment, as is done in geometry and physics. The sim- 
plest organic object seems far more intricate and com- 
plicated in its structure and possibilities than the 
most complex inorganic thing, even though made by 
the hand of man. 

5. And then the terms in which the sociologist's 
bit of the world must be described are quite indefi- 
nite; they are themselves indeed often exceedingly 
involved. In physics one may describe a force in 
phrases that are perfectly definite for every one, and 
plain enough to be generally comprehended, so that 
men may adjust themselves to it, intellectually if not 
organically. But one cannot conceive how the phe- 
nomena of human society could be measured mathe- 
matically, notwithstanding certain efforts of Comte and 
Herbart. And even if they could be, would this 
manner of description make society more intelligible 
to men than it now is in all its complexity? Sociolo- 
gists are compelled to employ qualitative rather than 
quantitative terms, and this implies that the terms 
are not exactly measured, and so the results of meas- 
uring cannot be precise in a mathematical way. 
When one says that man is "social" in his tendencies, 
the speaker may understand social in one way, and 
his hearers may interpret it in a different way. 
Even with the greatest amount of definition it would 
in all likelihood be impossible ever to reach a point 
where absolute identity in understanding would be 
attained in all minds. And yet we know that the 
statement is true for the practical life, and we could 
govern our conduct aright in view of it. It is truth- 
ful but not mathematically exact; such a statement 



THE FIELD OF EDUCATION. » 

would pass in the sphere of human relationships, but 
one similar in character would not pass in physics. 

§ 2. The Field of Education. 

6. If the sociologist is thus in doubt regarding the 
precise limits of his territory, and if he encounters 
grave difficulties in ascertaining the true character 
of the things which are found within his range, then 
the lines of the educationist fall in hard places indeed. 
Something has been accomplished in outlining the 
field of sociology, even if all points of contention are 
not yet settled to the satisfaction of every one con- 
cerned. But how much has been achieved thus far 
in defining the scope of educational inquiry? Those 
who, even down to our own day, have attempted 
classifications of the sciences have made no mention 
of education. One looks through the pages of Bacon, 
D'Alembert, Locke, Hobbes, Comte, Spencer, and 
others in the hope that he may find some suggestion 
regarding the province of education as a branch of 
scientific investigation, but he has only his pains for 
his reward. It is true that he will find biology and 
sociology mentioned in Comte and Spencer and others 
since their day, and certain subdivisions of these large 
territories are indicated, but still there is no intima- 
tion that education belongs anywhere in the list. It 
is not fit to be seen in the company of its proud sisters, 
so it is relegated to the chimney corner.^ 

^ Pearson (op. cit., p. 526) has made one of the most recent 
classifications with which I am familiar, and one might suppose 
he would have alluded to education, but he does not. (Cf , G. A. 
Cogswell on ''The Classification of the Sciences," Philosophical 
Review for 1899.) 



10 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

One is led to the view that the opinion has pre- 
vailed that education is an art concerned alone with 
practice and not with a body of principles. But, 
as a matter of fact, how can there ever be such a 
situation? In the performance of his art is one not 
manipulating things in some manner? And is he not 
either consciously or unconsciously following principles 
which describe and explain these things in terms which 
he comprehends and which enable him to adjust him- 
self to them? Does not the mechanic deal with his sit- 
uations in the light, more or less clear, of propositions 
which delineate their constitution and possibilities, so 
that he knows how he must handle them? Does not 
the farmer do the same, and the physician? And who 
determines the principles for artisans in different 
fields? The mechanic is dealing with forces the de- 
scription of which in some of their aspects belongs 
especially to physics, but the physicist never describes 
them in a way adequate to the needs of the engine- 
builder, for instance. Nor does the mathematician in 
his geometry or calculus give the civil engineer all that 
is required to construct a bridge or a railroad. It is 
true, of course, that the mechanic's art is founded upon 
physics and the engineer's upon mathematics,^ but yet 
the art must have something besides the pure science. 
Perhaps it would be right to say that the mechanical 
engineer develops a special department of physics, that 
department which is concerned with the adaptation of 
forces to the accomplishment of work of one sort or 
another, requiring the construction of contrivances to 
co-ordinate these forces with and adjust them to one 

* Cf. Pearson, op. cit, p. 509. 



THE FIELD OF EDUCATION. 11 

another in such a way as to get them acting together 
toward a desired end. 

7. It has been the fashion in certain quarters since 
the famous attack on pedagogy by the professor of 
philosophy at Berhn ^ to declaim from the housetops 
that education can never be made scientific. Professo/ 
Dilthey argued that the propositions of pedagogy cai? 
never have universal validity, since the conditions undei 
which a principle operates are never the same. People 
must be taught in particular ways according to the tra- 
ditions and needs of the locality in which they dwell, the 
age of the world in which they live, and the degree of 
development which they have already attained. Edu- 
cation must thus proceed in view of very special rather 
than general principles, and there is a vast amount 
which it attempts to deal with that it can never under- 
stand with any certainty. 

Comte arranged the sciences in a scale depending upon 
the measure of certitude which belonged to them, which 
is, as Ward has pointed out,^ equivalent to arranging 
them according to their degree of complexity. In this 
scale education would stand near if not quite at the 
top as the most complex of all, and so having the least 
certitude of any. When there is so great complexity 
it is extremely difficult, if it is possible at all, to deter- 
mine the force which produces any particular effect; 
and this has determined the extent to which the sci- 
ences treating of human nature have become developed. 

* Professor Dilthey in his address delivered before the Berlin 
Academy of Sciences, 1888. Cf. also Royce, "Is there a Science 
of Education? " Educational Review, Jan. and Feb., 1891, Vol 
I., pp. 15-25, and 121-132: and Hinsdale, " The Science and Art 
of Teaching," in Studies in Education, pp. 91-112. 

2 In the American Journal of Sociology, Vol. I., pp. 16 et seq. 



J2 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

Education and mechanics resemble each other in 
respect of the universahty of their principles. The 
applications of any mechanical law must always be 
made to fit peculiar conditions. In stating a princi- 
ple the mechanical engineer never fails to qualify 
what he says; ^^ certain conditions being given, ^^ he 
declares, '' you will always get a certain effect." And 
Professor Dilthey would be compelled to grant that 
the educationist can go as far as this. Given pre- 
cisely similar conditions in any number of educational 
situations and the application of a certain principle 
of teaching will be the same in all instances. Of 
course it is unlikely that we ever get these^ conditions 
exactly the same, except in the most general form, 
as, for instance, in the case that every normal human 
being seeks to increase his pleasures and decrease his 
pains, and that he possesses certain mental powers, — 
the power to perceive, to remember, to reason, although 
these are not equal in degree or efficiency in different 
individuals. Again, one can say without qualifica- 
tion in respect of any condition, — age, race, sex, of 
degree of mental development, — that the mind inter- 
prets new objects, comprehends them, through former 
experience with them, or things akin to them; and 
one will adjust himself to a present situation in view 
of the outcome of previous experiments with similar 
situations. Every scientist will agree to these and 
other propositions describing uniformities in the be- 
havior of human beings, and these may constitute 
the basal principles upon which the educational struc- 
ture may be reared. 

8. The question which the educationist is called upon 
to answer is, Can I present certain principles in my 



THE FIELD OF EDUCATIONo 13 

special field which faithfully portray a phase of the 
world not previously described by some one else? The 
question contains no allusion to how much or how little 
can be presented; it simply requires that whatever is 
offered must be truthful to objective fact. It does not 
contemplate, either, that the principles so offered 
shall have universal and unqualified application, for a 
principle may itself provide for modification under 
different conditions and in special situations. This 
must be the case with all complex phenomena. 

So if education presents the doctrine, to name but 
one here, that the aim of education is adaptation to 
environments, this would certainly have to be specially 
interpreted in special situations. In Cicero's time 
the aim of education must have been adaptation to 
environments, but the environments which the Roman 
encountered and the complexity of adaptation required 
were not just the same as in the days and in the land 
of Aristotle; surely not the same as in the days and 
in the land of George Washington or Herbert Spencer. 
The social environment to be dealt with changes in 
character with the evolution of the race, and varies 
with the different races; the physical environment is 
modified by the locality, and so on. But our general 
principle, as a type of educational propositions, is none 
the less scientific because it has not just the same 
application in all instances, though it may be less 
mathematical, less perspicacious, more complex and 
indeterminate on this account. 



CHAPTER II. 
EFFECTIVE METHOD IN EDUCATION. 

§ I. The Requirements of Effective Method. 

9. The absorbing ambition of the scientist is to get at 
the truth; to determine precisely what things are and in 
what way phenomena occur. And what are the methods 
which if faithfully pursued will lead one to truth? Aris- 
totle asked this question in ancient days and answered 
it/ in a way at any rate. He saw that man's 
spontaneous, off-hand judgments cannot be depended 
upon, for they are as likely as not to be based upon 
prejudice. The experience of the ages has only con- 
firmed what Cicero said more than twenty centuries 
ago, — that people do not commonly appraise things 
at their just value; rather they allow their prejudices 
to rule their judgments.^ Aristotle realized that the 
individual observer in his contact with the world 
about him sees things in an individual way, depend- 
ing upon a vast number of conditions which have 
contributed to form his particular mental constitu- 
tion. If he has been a slave, for instance, he sees 

^ See Davidson, op. cit, chap, on Aristotle. See also an 
article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, ninth edition, Vol. II., 
pp. 510-523. 

^ Cf. Voltaire, La Fanatisme, II., 4, for a lively discussion 
of the influence of prejudice on right judgment. 

14 



EFFECTIVE METHOD IN EDUCATION. 15 

the world from the slave's point of ^dew. He does 
not see things in their proper setting, but divorces 
them from their accompaniments in the real world, 
and so does not attach to them a proper value. On 
the other hand, how different is the world which the 
master sees? He opens his eyes upon the same en- 
vironment but he does not behold the same scenes, 
for he interprets what lies before him in a very different 
way from his slave. Pass the world through the minds 
of two men who do not purge their mental vision of 
phantoms, and you will not recognize it as the same 
object when it comes out. On this account, then, 
man's spontaneous judgment is not to be trusted; he 
is not likely without special precaution to discern 
truth with an unprejudiced eye. He cannot eliminate 
self from the process, as Morgan would say. 

So Aristotle, realizing this more or less explicitly, saw 
that in order to reach truth the investigator must adopt 
a mode of looking at the world wherein his prejudices 
will, to the fullest possible extent, be held in check, 
so that he may see things in their true light, and not 
distorted by his personal bias. The personal element 
must be thrust aside. The mind must be held up to 
nature until it beholds her in her true forms, and 
classifies and co-ordinates her varied activities so that 
uniformity may be made to appear in the midst of dis- 
tracting diversities. Mere opinion is not wanted, for 

"Opinion's but a fool that makes us scan 
The outward habit by the inward man." ^ 

Aristotle argued that one could not discover truth by 
the dialectic process ; the dialectician is a mere formalist 
who manipulates empty words. One must go to nature 

Pericles, act II., scene 2, p. 56. 



16 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

if he would reach truths which will be of value for prac- 
tice. Thus he was led to adopt the inductive method, 
by employing which he would be more likely to let 
things impress themselves upon him in the way and in 
the order in which they exist in the world, so that in his 
classifications he would be faithful to the objective order 
of the universe. 

10. All investigation meriting the good name of sci- 
ence must, we think to-day, be conducted in the spirit 
if not according to the exact letter of this method. 
We have come to be suspicious of all theories in any 
field which have not been derived in this critical manner. 
Men have thought crookedly for so long a time and in 
respect of all things both natural and human that we 
may well distrust any individual who professes to have 
discovered truth, if he has not adopted that mode of re- 
search which alone has been found capable of yielding 
reliable results. People have had enough and too much 
of alchemy and astrology and chiromancy and things of 
that sort; and they have had enough too of the method 
of looking at the world which produced these pseudo- 
sciences. Speculation divorced from precise observa- 
tion; metaphysical and logical argument * about what 

* Goethe realized that much philosophizing is but the manipu- 
lation of words, and empty, barren words, too. He says in 
Faust : 

"The best thing that the case affords 

Is — stick to some one Doctor's words: 

Maintain his doctrines out and out, 

Admit no qualifying doubt; 

But stick to words, at any rate: 

Their magic makes the temple gate 

Of Certainty fly safely ope ; 

Words, words alone, are your best hope. 



EFIPECTIVE METHOD IN lODUCATTON. 17 

ouglit to I)<^ tiMic no longer n,|)|)('}ils (,o men. Mandsloy'fl 
criti(!isin ' of l\u\ s|)('(5ulji(/iv(\ vcrhnl Htudy of Imnuui 
iiaturo, nnd Uk^ MU^^c^slion of n Ix-l.tcr one, in;iy not ho 
out of place luTc. "I must confciSH," he nays, " to Ix'in/; 
unahlci to mho tlu^ir (tli(^ pliilosoplicrs') lan^nn^rc with a 
satisfactory sense; of liavin/i; clcjir and (h'linitc ideas h(^- 
neath its terms, to havinu; no proper hiith in tlieir meth- 
ods, and to h."i,vin^ f.'iiled to feather from tluur vvorkw fruita 
of any pi-.'U'.|ic;d use." 

§ 2c The Methods Pursued by Educationists of 
the Past. 

11. Has tlie ('(hicationist (tomphed with tlie re<|nire- 
Tiierd-s of effective method in the; ehiboration of his 
principles? I'lato, tlie first to tr(\*i,t e(hicji,tion in 
a S(u*ious maimer, maint;uns in th(; i^rota^oras/'' tliat 
th(^ cliild oufj^ht to h(; instructed re/Jjardin^ whn,t is just 
and unjust and honor;i,hle .'uid dis^rac(;ful, and that if 
ho (loos not yi(!l(l ohetheiice lie must l)(^ c()orc(Ml into it. 
When tin; boy ^och to hcIiooI hv. nnist Ix; iruuh; to learn 
by h(;art wliat is ^ood in the po(!ts, and nuist in time 

Slu. I'lit ill <'uch word iiiiiHt ]h', u thought — • 

Mcpk. 'Ihcn; is, or vvc nmy ho ussiimo — 

Not- ulwayH found, nor idwityH Hon^lii — 
Whil(i words inert! wonJH HU|)|)ly itH room* 
Wonts uiiHwrr well when iricn ciiliHl 'em, 
In huiidiiiju; up n Invorit*! Hy.stcin: 
With words men do^iniiti/c, ilcccivi^; 
With words dispute, on words Ixiiiovo; 
And h(s Uu! incHiiinj:; much or little, 
The words vm\ 1oh(! nor jot nor tittlf." 

* Body nnd Will, pp. v. und vi., Introduction. 

^ Pj). 20:3-205, tnuiHlutftd by Wright. JVlucrniiluii & Co., 1888. 



18 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

have music and gymnastics. Plato argues elsewhere * 
that only the narrative form of storj^-telling should be 
allowed; that the Ionian and Lydian harmonies should 
not be heard by the young, only the Dorian and Phry- 
gian styles; that all musical instruments except the 
lyre, the guitar, and the pipe, and all complex rhythms 
should be prohibited; that the studies of the school 
should include simply arithmetic, geometry, and 
astronomy. 

He is treating here of exceedingly complex matters, 
so complex indeed that when viewed from the stand- 
point of modern experimental science it seems quite 
impossible to subject them to scientific experiment. 
Certainly Plato did not isolate the separate factors in- 
volved in these intricate processes, and ascertain their 
effects in many particular instances, and thus by a 
process of long induction reach the generalizations which 
he presents. He reached them by another but perhaps 
less difficult route. To begin with, he had before him 
the educational practices of his people; he saw with 
greater or less clearness the outcome of a certain regime 
even though he had not deliberately analyzed the factors 
which produced the results. Then, further, he had 
reflected upon the characteristics of human nature, 
maldng direct observations to some extent, and deduc- 
ing in other instances principles from pliilosophic 
premises, some of which were handed down to him by 
preceding philosophers, and others of which were the 
fruit of his own thinking, and the intellectual comple- 
ment of liis rehgious hopes and beliefs. Then he looked 
upon the educational process and interpreted the prob- 

»In the Republic, pp. 64-116, and 221-269, Davies and 
Vaughn translation. Macmillan & Co., 1888. 



EFFECTIVE METHOD IN EDUCATION. 19 

lems there presented in the hght of the wisdom he had 
gained in his philosophic reflections, and his observa- 
tions upon the education of his time. 

When he urged that the child ought to be told what 
is just and holy, that he ought to be whipped if he did 
not obey, he followed the method of reaching conclusions 
which the race has pursued in developing much of its 
practical philosophy, — ^getting at unknown tilings by 
tracing hkenesses in them to things that are already 
understood, or at least are believed. If the tree of the 
physical world that we see and experiment upon directly 
does not start out straight you must bend it back ; you 
must use force to straighten it up. So if the tree of the 
mental world does not grow straight according to the 
philosopher's conception of psychical straightness, it 
should then be forced back into the line of action that 
is deemed best.^ So to be told what is just and holy 
will lead to a just and hol}^ life. There is little tendency 
in this mode of proceeding to try a principle for a long 
time to see how it actually works ; it is a priori reason- 
ing largely, the mind resting assured that it has reached 

* The tendency to explain mental phenomena in terms of 
physieal occurrences has been a very serious obstacle to the 
scientific study of human nature. Our psychology and educa- 
tional philosophy are full of terms denoting purely physical proc- 
esses. Granger comments upon this fact, saying: "Dangerous 
suppositions still lurk in the application of metaphors drawn 
from the commoner movements, as, for instance, grasping, 
weighing, apprehending, and so on ; here we are led to think 
of the mind as a workman standing outside of, and having a 
separate existence from, his work. Physiological expressions 
are dangerous, too, when transferred from the nervous process 
to the mental one. Recently a physician, lecturing in one of 
the older universities to teachers, defined thought to consist 
in Hhe formation of the union of cells.'" — Psychology, p. 4. 



20 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

the right goal when it has gotten the problematical thin^, 
into a general system of theoretical philosophy which 
it regards as founded upon the rock of truth. 

12. So this is Plato's method, and it is the m.ethod, 
too, of all his contemporaries and followers, except 
Aristotle, who, as we have seen, was inclined to investi- 
gate things directly. He had less faith than his fellow- 
philosophers in the value of interpreting the world by 
means of dogmas which had been elaborated in some 
way or another ap^^rt from direct examination of the 
concrete realities to which they related. 

13. When we come dowm to the reformers who were 
governed in their theories and practices respecting 
education, as well as other matters, by the spirit of 
the Renaissance, we seem to discern in Erasmus^ and 
his contemporaries a prophecy of what is to come. 
There is apparent in these men a tendency to go 
directly to the world to find out what it is and how 
it behaves itself. This tendency is marked in an 
emphatic w^ay when we come to Rabelais and to 
Montaigne, the first realists, so called, in education. 
There can, of course, be no mistaking Locke's attitude 
and spirit as an investigator, though he did not gain 
his facts regarding education in such a careful and 
extensive way as genuine scientific method demands,^ 
nor was he cautious enough in drawing his conclusions. 

14. In more recent times we can see the spirit of 
genuine inquiry in things educational gradually 

^ See three articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, ninth 
edition — Erasmus; The Renaissance; Scholasticism. See also 
Quick, Educational Reformers, chaps. 1 and 2; and Davidson, 
A History of Education, Book II., Division II., chap. 4. 

' See his Thoughts on Education^ edited by Quick. 



EFFECTIVE METHOD IN EDUCATION. 21 

gaining supremacy, although there is a long struggle 
ahead. Doubtless people would differ widely re- 
garding the merit of Rousseau's Emile;^ but all ac- 
knowledge that it shows a feeling at least for things 
as they are, and to a greater or less extent the power 
of handhng them so as to discover the laws which 
bind them together. Yet Rousseau is not an impar- 
tial, critical observer and a careful generalizer. In 
this connection many readers ^^ill doubtless think of 
Basedow^ and liis Philanthropinum as an illustra- 
tion of thorough scientific method in education, but 
too much ought not to be claimed for the man and 
his work. After all he is hardly a student of edu- 
cation according to a strict method of induction or 
experiment. The Philanthropinum was not a labora- 
tory; it did not take up problems of teaching in an 
experimental way. Basedow did not attack educa- 
tion without preconceptions. The Philanthropinum 
was simply a material expression of doctrines wiiich 
he had foniied in other ways. This does not caU 
in question the value of liis institution in the historj.^ 
of education; it merely assigns it a proper place as a 
scientific establishment. 

15. And so passing on to Pestalozzi ^ and Froebel,* 
it is not recorded of either that he used his school for the 
purpose that the physicist or biologist uses his labora- 
tory. Yet every one will grant that there is something 
of the scientific atmosphere enveloping their work. There 

*See the Emile, translated by Eleanor Worthington. 
^ See Quick, Essays on Educational Reformers, Essay on 
Basedow. 

^ See his Leonard and Gertrude, translated by Eva Channing. 
* See The Education of Man, 



22 EDUCATlON^ AS ADJUSTMENT. 

is a sense of the reality of the objective world, and of 
the necessity of coming face to face with it in order to 
discover what it is. Of course there is an almost com- 
plete lack of purging the mind of preconceptions, in the 
educational theorizing of Froebel especially. He came 
up to the study of the problems of education filled with 
the Schelling symbolic philosophy, and saw everything 
hmnan in the hght of it. That he discerned truthfully 
some of the attributes of childhood and the proper 
modes of influencing it every one will probably grant. 
But in so far as his fundamental conception of the 
nature and powers of tlie human mind was at fault, 
just in that measure he went astray in his doctrine 
concerning the materials and methods best adapted to 
the instruction of the young. 

§ 3. The Methods of Educationists of Our Own 

Times. 

16. And so as we come downi to our own day we 
find that while the scientific attitude in education 
is becoming more and more prominent, still a large 
part of educational theory shows what must be re- 
garded as marked personal bias. Consider the reason 
why men differ so widely in their views; is it not 
due in large part to the fact that they have not 
investigated the questions at issue in that impersonal, 
self -eliminated, unprejudiced way that gives to physics 
and chemistry and biology such definiteness and certi- 
tude? See, for instance, Herbert Spencer, in terms with 
which every one is familiar, lauding science as an instru- 
ment of education; while Fouillee, the French philoso- 
pher, speaks of it in depreciatory terms." ''I learn 
^ Education from a National Standpoint, p. 61. 



EFFECTIVE METHOD IN EDUCATION. 23 

arithmetic," he says, "because some day it will be use- 
ful to me to know how to count; I learn physics be- 
cause it will be useful to me to know the properties of 
bodies; I learn mechanics because the subject is useful 
in making machines; I learn natural history because it 
is useful in hygiene and in medicine ; I learn geography 
because it is useful to know about different countries, 
and because it is said to be useful in times of war, etc. 
The child thus runs the risk of taking self-interest as the 
universal standard, and the more our curricula are over- 
loaded with unconnected special sciences the less edu- 
cative virtue they have." It is significant that the 
scientists usually vote for science in the curriculum and 
the classicists against it. Huxley ^ argues with all his 
might for a scientific education, and Matthew Arnold^ 
argues just as passionately against it, — or at least for 
something in its place. The latter expresses the fear 
that science will blunt the fine faculties, and render one 
indifferent to the well-being of his fellows; while Spen- 
cer finds in it a source alike of great social and religious 
value. Fouillee thinks the method of any science but 
mathematics is worthless, while Pea,rson ^ expresses a 
diametrically opposite opinion, holding that investiga- 
tion in science and the diffusion of scientific knowledge 
will develop mental habits which will promote better 
citizenship and lead to a more stable form of govern- 
ment. He maintains what many believe, that after a 
scientific training one is less apt to be led astray by pas- 
sion or by the appearance of things. Science develops 

* See his Education and Science. 

'See his A French Eton; Middle Class Education and the 
State. 

« Op. cif., p. 9. 



24 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

a tendency to examine facts critically and handle them 
impartially, and this is the best training for a free 
citizen. 

17. And so every study has its friends and its ene- 
mies, its supporters and its defamers, many of the opin- 
ions expressed regarding them reflecting individual ex- 
periences merely. One is forced to the view that little 
pains have been taken ordinarily to divest the mind 
of idols. Men when they discuss education are often 
really pleaders, advocates, partisans, not scientists. 
Spencer, as every one knows, thought classical study 
of practically no conseciuence. The discipline it gives 
could be got as well in studying Choctaw, or m.emoriz- 
ing the names in a city directory. Fouillee, on the con- 
trary, thinks most highly of the classics. He says ^ that 
in translating a pupil must examine every word wdth 
critical care to determine just what it means, and to find 
a word in his own language which will exactly express 
the thought. In ferreting out the hidden meaning of a 
sentence he must see the connection between all the 
words and the specific ideas which they denote, and as 
a final act put the whole thing over into another lan- 
guage. In doing this he makes the thought of the au- 
thor his own; he lives over the experiences of the writer; 
he grows into possession of all the author possesses. 

18. If one will look over the opinions of great English- 
men (not to mention people of other countries) who 
have indicated their views of the value of classics he will 
find them arrayed in almost equal numbers on opposite 
sides of the question. ''On the one side contending 
with impassioned ardor for the superiority of the class- 

1 Op. cit, p. 108. 



EFFECTIVE METHOD IN EDUCATION. 25 

ics, maintaining by elaborate argument that they alone 
fonn the basis for a liberal training and that no person 
lacldng familiarity with them can lay claims to being 
cultured, — holding these views may be found Mill, New- 
m^an, Bishop Temple, Martineau, and Gladstone. On 
the other side, protesting with equal vigor against the 
time consumed m the study of ancient languages, de- 
claring in the most vigorous terms that it is alike a waste 
of energy and a hindrance to the broadest expansion of 
the soul, — on this side may be found Locke, De Quincey, 
Carlyle, Spencer, Froude, and Bain." ^ As a contrast 
to the unstinted praise that has been meted out to class- 
ical education in our times we have Carlyle's ''Gerund 
Grinder"; and Sidney Smith paints in sombre colors 
a picture of the English schoolboy, — ''full of animal 
spirits, set down on a bright sunny day, with a heap of 
unknown words before him, to be turned mto Enghsh 
before supper by the help of a ponderous dictionary 
alone." ' 

19. It ought not to be necessary to produce further 
evidence to show that it is the common thing for a 
man's principles of education to be determined by liis 
particular interests and inclinations.^ One trained as a 
scientist, and making his living in this field, is apt to see 

' O'Sheva, Relative Values in Secondary and Higher Educa- 
tion, — a paper read before the North Central Association of 
Colleges and Preparatory Schools, April 2, 1898, and printed in 
the School Review for May, 1898. 

^ Quoted by Spencer, Aims and Practice of Teaching, p. 62. 

^ See papers in Youmans, op. cit., and Farrar (editor), Essays 
on a Liberal Education, for illustrations in addition to those 
that have been given of radically different opinions on the 
same topic, the scientists lauding science, and the ancients for 
the most part singing the praises of the dead languages. 



26 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

education, in some of its phases at any rate, in a differ- 
ent light from one reared in the atmosphere of the 
classics. There has been too great an admixture of 
prejudice in the outcome of research, or one ought to 
say in the formation of opinion ; for there has been next 
to no research in the proper sense of the term. In these 
matters which touch one's interests so vitally, which 
seem to caJl in question the character of his upbringing, 
or which involve the bread-and-butter problem imme- 
diately or remotely, — in such matters judgment is espe- 
cially liable to go astray, and scientific method alone will 
bring anything hke truthful results. 



CHAPTER III. 
THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 

§ I. The Survival of the Fittest in Education. 

20. While little value should be attached to indi- 
vidual opinion in education, still it seems different with 
principles that have lived throughout the history^ of 
the race, and that have been repeated in one form or 
another by all great thinkers, however much they may 
have differed in matters of detail. Is it safe to say 
that articles of belief in education which have been held 
by generation after generation, and tested by them, and 
are as fresh to-day as ever, — is it §afe to say that 
such principles are scientific? that they express in a 
truthful wa}^ certain relations of the race to the world? 
Perhaps the logician and the evolutionist would not agree 
on this point; the fonner might, indeed he would be 
likely to, demand that all principles accepted as scientific 
should be demonstrated in an explicit manner accord- 
ing to the requirements of induction. He would doubt- 
less attach little importance to the age-quality of any 
proposition ; if it cashes to be admitted into the ranks 
of science it must show its credentials, all set out in 
black and white. The evolutionist, on the other hand, 
would be inclined to recognize the claims of principles 
that have held their own throughout the ups and do\vns 

27 



28 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

of humanity, even if a clear account of their estabUsh- 
ment cannot be given. These he would be apt to think 
probably express the highest truth which the race can 
attain ; they must possess genuine worth, and represent 
the world and man's relation to it in a truthful manner 
or they would not have survived. 

And have not such principles really been established 
in conformity to the requirements of effective method? 
Every induction in any field and at any time leads at 
first to an hypothesis, which does not become a law until 
it is tried under varying circumstances and not found 
wanting. Ne^i^on thus formulated the principle of 
gravitation first as an hypothesis; men have been work- 
ing with it since, and to-day they believe it is a law, for 
it has never failed to work in any situation in which it 
has been tried, ^o men have been working with cer- 
tain principles of education for a much longer period 
than they have worked with the law of gravitation, and 
they have stood the test. 

Spencer seems to have the right on his side when he 
says that whatever has for a long period met with the 
approval of the wise and the good has, in all likelihood, 
much truth in it. Payne, too, puts the matter Mn the 
proper light in saying that the keenest minds of all ages 
and countries have devoted themselves to a study of 
human nature, and there has never been a time when 
the ablest people have not been stri\'ing to solve 
educational problems. It is impossible to tliink that 
they have not accomplished something of real value 
which makes it unnecessary for the educationist of 
to-day to start from the very beginning. Perhaps he 

* Contributions to the Science of Education, p. vi. 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 29 

goes too far in saying that the "main data for the estab- 
lishment of a rational art of education are now found in 
the current systems of philosophy and psychology — and 
there really exist a sufficient number of such data to lay 
the foundations of a science of education"; but if this 
is an overstatement of the case it is certainly just as 
much an understatement to say that there is nothing 
of worth to be gained from the reflections and investi- 
gations of the great thinkers of all times. 

21. Some at least of the principles which were 
announced by Plato ^ have been repeated by every 
eminent educator since his time, and they are maintained 
as i-igorously to-day as when they came from the pen 
of their author; and, moreover, scientific experiment, as 
we shall try to show in due season, is corroborating a 
considerable part of the small body of doctrines that 
have come up to us unchanged through the storm and 
stress of the ages. Again, if one will compare some of 
Aristotle's educational doctrines with those advocated 
to-day he will be struck with the siixdlarity in many 
fundamental respects. He says,^ among other tilings, 
"It is of great importance that cliildren should make 
those motions that are appropriate to their stage of 
development. . . . Whatever it is possible to inure 
children to, they ought to be subjected to from the very 
outset, and gradual progress to be made. . . . Care 
must be taken that their games shall be neither unre- 
fined, laborious, nor languid. As to the conversation 
and stories which children are to hear ... it ought to 
be seen that all such tilings tend to pave the w^ay for 

»See the Hepublic, pp. 64-116 and 221-269, Davies and 
Vaughn Translation. 

2 The PoUtics, Jowett's Translation, Book VH., chap, 17 



30 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

future avocations. As to the screaming and crying 
of children, they are things that ought not to be pro- 
hibited, as they are in some places. They contribute 
to the growth of the body by acting as a sort of gym- 
nastics. As to foul language, it ought, of course, hke 
everything else that is foul, to be prohibited in all society 
(for frivolous impurity of talk easily leads to impurity 
of action), but above all, in the society of the young, so 
that they may neither hear nor utter any such things." 
How modern Locke seems! One might think some 
present-day child-study enthusiast, imbued with the doc- 
trines of the new psychology, was expressing his views. 
See, too, how thoroughly in accord with the best thought 
in all ages is the following doctrine of method in teach- 
ing, advocated by Aristotle: "... music will have a 
much greater effect in moulding people, if they take 
part in the performance themselves. Indeed it is 
difficult, or even impossible, for those w^ho do not 
learn to do things themselves to be good judges of 
them w^hen they are done." ^ "I^earn to do by do- 
ing" is the watchword which has been called out by 
one after another of the great masters of thought 
ever since the learned Greek's time, and it is the leading 
principle of our educational philosophy to-day. Will 
one go astray if he exalts such a principle in his edu- 
cational theory to the certainty of a law of gravita- 
tion, especially when it is endorsed by a number of 
sciences treating of the nature of a human being from 
different standpoints? ^ 

» Op. cit, Book YIII. 

^ Our present-day research in human development is not 
changing materially the scheme relating to the great epochs 
of growth in the individual set forth by Aristotle: (1) Child- 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 31 

22. There is probably no more effective means of 
discriminating truth from error in matters pertaining 
to human nature than in subjecting a principle to the 
test of practice. If a doctrine is right, it will weather 
all storms; if not, it will be cast aside in the long run. 
And education is especially favored in respect of the 
material which has been produced for natural selec- 
tion to work upon, since the greatest concern of the 
race has always been the education of the young, 
whether this has been exphcitly recognized or not; 
and as an outcome of the winnowing process there 
have come do\vn to us a few principles which are 
entitled to the rank of genuine truth. 

As we have seen, the experimentalist hesitates to 
attach value to anytliing except the results of con- 
scious, explicit, deliberate investigation, wherein all the 
antecedents and concomitants of things have been taken 
due account of, and they all appear in the final state- 
ment. He does not recognize that in our reactions to 
tilings with which we are dealing all the time we 
gradually arrive at generahzations in a subconscious 
way, so that we cannot give an account of the details 
of the process. But the psychologist takes the ground 
that the principle expressing the outcome of this more 
or less unconscious experimentation may often repre- 

hood, extending from birth to the end of the seventh year, and 
spent in healthy growing, and latterly in preparation for disci- 
pline; (2) Boyhood, from the beginning of the eighth year to 
the advent of puberty, devoted to the lighter forms of discipline, 
bodily and mental; (3) Youth, from the age of puberty to the 
end of the twenty-first year, occupied with the severer forms of 
discipline; (4) Manhood, devoted to State duties. See the 
results of recent study of this subject summarized by Bryan, 
Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. VII., pp. 357-396. 



32 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

sent the highest kind of truth. In our efforts to get 
adjusted to the world our experiences lead us to ap- 
praise in an appropriate manner different sorts of con- 
duct according to their outcome upon our happiness; 
and in oft-recurring situations there is offered oppor- 
tunity for the institution of definite modes of be- 
havior, which in the intellectual life are represented 
by articles of beUef, and in a science of human nature 
they ought to denote principles in which one may place 
much confidence. 

23. Then see what a wealth of material of this char- 
acter the educator has at liis disposal in the experi- 
ments that have been made by nations in putting to 
the test different systems of education. He has before 
him, though in a complex and confused condition, the 
main results of Spartan and Athenian and Roman and 
Chinese and Medisevai and Spanish and German and 
Russian and perhaps American education as types. 
Of course many vdH shake their heads; they will say 
that no one can disentangle the forces wMch have 
co-operated to produce certain characteristics in 
indi\adual or in national life, and their contention 
doubtless has some basis in fact. When we see that 
different people ascribe the qualities of Spartans, for 
example, to various causes, some to peculiarities of 
education, some to influences of environment, some 
to native temperament of the people, some to relig- 
ious ideals, and so on, — this fact shows how difficult 
it is to determine just what has been the effect on 
national life of any particular educational practice. 

It is held by some that the arrest in the develop- 
ment of the Orientals has been due to a lack of 
contact with the concrete, actual world which the; 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 33 

educational methods of progressive nations secure for 
their youth. The Chinese pupil, it is said, is kept 
memorizing symbols all his years, and is as ignorant to- 
day of the world around him as his ancestors were three 
thousand j^ears ago. Others maintain that the arrest in 
Chinese civilization has been due to the character of 
their food; to their total isolation from the civiliza- 
tions around them; to their native incapacity; and so 
it goes. How can we say what force has pushed Eng« 
land to the front, and what one has compelled China 
to remain far in the rear? or have many forces operated 
together? Does an understanding of the world in which 
one lives— the social, the aesthetic, and the physical 
world — lead to improvement in foods and modes of 
life? Does it take people out beyond their borders to 
associate with other people, and so find out what they 
know and what they do? 

In the present state of our knowledge there is no ab- 
solute, definite answer that can be made in any individ- 
ual instance. But here again it is possible to see that 
a certain outcome in national achievement and pros- 
perity is generally associated with certain educational 
practices, and it seems probable that the two are con- 
nected as cause and effect. Then if the light thus given 
harmonizes with that radiated from other sources, are 
we going too far in saying that the principle involved is 
demonstrated as fully as we can ever prove anything in 
any department of human nature? If history in any of 
its ramifications can be regarded as scientific, or so- 
ciology, or political econom}^, — sciences which base 
their principles upon the outcome of human conduct in 
the past, the first entirely, and the others partly, — if 
these can be called scientific^ then education which can 



34 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

make use of the data which these subjects employ cer- 
tainly ought to achieve the same degree of accuracy 
in its results. " Der Historiker ist em ruckwdrts gekehr- 
ter Prophet/' Schlegel say^; and he is able to prophesy 
because he has discovered certain uniformities in hu- 
man nature, and he knows hov/ phenomena within the 
range of these must occur — and this is science of the 
first quality. 

§ 2. Data Derived from Biography. 

24. Every adult presents in his conduct the results of 
some sort of an educational regimen; his character is 
but the last term in a series of causes and effects. We 
see what the man is and what he can do ; and his facility 
in adjusting himself well to his fellows and to nature af- 
fords a standard by which to estimate the value of his 
early schooling. We encounter here, of course, the dif-- 
ficulty which we have met elsewhere. In dealing with 
such complex matters we cannot estimate precisely the 
influence of each factor which has contributed to the 
total result. We cannot agree upon just what influ- 
ences contributed to mould the characters of Homer 
and Caesar and Cicero; Shakespeare and Spencer; Grant 
and Lincoln; but still, by the method of comparison 
as it has been employed in handling other kinds of 
data, we may reach conclusions of positive value. When 
the educational principles indicated in the history of 
any single life are indicated as well in the history of 
other individual lives and of national life, and are en- 
dorsed by experiment and the doctrines of psychol- 
ogy, we are not too presumptive in asking that they be 
admitted to the rank of scientific truth. 

It may be said, and with truth, that we have but few 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 35 

reliable records of the careers of individual men, and 
such records as we have even do not specify in much de- 
tail the character of the subjects' educational training 
and the outcome. But yet we are not left altogether 
empty-handed, by any means. The educationist has 
access to all that the historians know regarding the 
men and women of the past, and he has before him 
in concrete form the men and women now living so 
that he may study his subject at first hand, and much 
is being attempted in this direction to-day. Then there 
are autobiographies, like those of Mill,^ Pierre Loti,^ 
Bashkirtseff,^ Burnett,^ Washington,^ Winslow,^ and 
Tolstoi/ and they have indicated in some detail their 
educational training, and the effects, so far as they can 
themselves trace them, upon their after lives. Again, 
a number of intelligent men in our own country have 
told us^ how they were educated, and what they be- 
Ueved to be the value of certain studies and methods. 
Then, too, Galton,^ Candolle,^^ Yoder,^^ and others have 

* Autobiography. New York, 1887. 

^ The Romance of a Child, translated by Watkins. Chicago, 
1891. 

^ Journal, translated by Hall and Heckel. Chicago, 1890. 

'The One I I^ew Best of All. 

^ Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. New York, 1901. 

^ Diary of Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl. 
Boston, 1894. 

' Childhood, Boyhood, Youth; translated by Hapgood. New 
York, 1886. 

^ In the "How I was Educated" Papers. 

® See English Men of Science, their Nature and Nurture, 
chap. 1. 

*° Histoire des Sciences et des Savants depuis deux Siecles. 
Geneve, 1873. 

*^ Story of the Boyhood of Great Men ; Pedagogical Seminary, 
Vol III., pp. 134 et seq. 



36 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

carefully worked out the lives of distinguished men with 
the special purpose of estimating the results of different 
modes of educational training, and these data are, as 
far as they go, of genuine worth. They furnish some 
evidence regarding the value of different branches of 
instruction for persons in different walks of life. They 
indicate the effects upon after years of different methods 
of school discipline. They show the virtues and the 
failings of personal characteristics in teachers. In 
short, biography reveals to us in a real, even if not 
in a very detailed way, the sort of structure that is 
produced by following certain architectural plans and 
modes of building in education. 

§ 3. Experimentation in Education. 

25. But still information derived from these sources 
lacks the fulness and definiteness and accuracy of 
experimental data. Men have come to appreciate 
this, and we see about us to-day great interest, and 
activity in the experimental investigation of educa- 
tional questions. The methods of the laboratory are 
coming to be employed in the study of education, 
and already a few at least of the problems encoun- 
tered in the school have been carefully studied by 
precise methods. For illustration, take the subject of 
language instruction; the teacher seeks to so train 
his pupils that they may master language most effec- 
tively as an instrument for the gaining and communi- 
cating of thought, and he is anxious to accomplish 
this in the most economical and effective manner. 
Now, when shall the pupil enter upon this study? 
What phase of the subject shall he attack first? How 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 37 

shall he move on to it? What tactics shall he employ 
in overcoming it? We are getting some data of 
scientific value relating to these matters. Shall the 
pupil be introduced to the letter, the word, or the 
sentence first? Some of the elementary factors in 
this problem have been studied experimentally by 
Cattell,^ Grashey,^ Goldscheider and Muller,^ Quant z,'* 
Bagley,^ Pillsbury,^ Bryan and Harter,'^ and others. 
The investigations on the pathology of language, on 
aphasia, which have been conducted in recent years 
have given much information bearing upon the prob^ 
lems of language teaching, — such information as is 
given by Elder,^ Collins,^ Bawden,^'^ and others. The 
observation of children learning language will yield 

*Ueber die Zeit der Erkennim<r imd Benennimg, etc., Philo 
sophische Studien, Vol. I., pp. 635 et seq. 

^ Ueber Aphasie und ihre Beziehung zur Walirnehmung 
Archiv. fiir Psych, und Nervenkrankheit, Vol. XVI., pp. 654 
et seq. 

^ Zur Psychologie und Pathologie des Lesens, Zeitschrift fiir 
klinische Medicme Vol. XXIII., pp. 130 ct seq. 

* Problems in the Psychology of Reading. = Monograph Supple- 
ment to the Psychological Review, Vol. II., No. 1. 

^ The Apperception of the Spoken Sentence ; A Study in the 
Psychology of Language, American Journal of Ps3^chologj'-, 
Vol. XII, No. 1, and Reprint. 

® The Reading of Words. American Journal of Psychology, 
Vol. XII. 

' Studies in the Physiology and Psychology of the Telegraphic 
Language, Psychological Review, Vol. IV., No. 1, and Reprint; 
and Studies on the Telegraphic Language, PsychologicaJ 
Review, Vol, \T[., No. 4, and Reprint. 

^ Aphasia and the Cerebral Speech Mechanism. 

* The Genesis and Dissolution of the Faculty of Speech. 

'° A Study of Lapses, Monograph Supplement to the Psy- 
chological Review, VoL III., No. 4. 



38 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

data of scientific worth for education, and much reliable 
work of this character has already been done by Preyer/ 
Shinn,^ Hall,^ Perez/ Tracy,^ Lukens,^ Kirkpatrick/ 
Dewey ,^ Sully ,^ Taine/^ and others. 

26. And then consider the amount of material on 
the teaching of language which has been produced 
by teachers of the subject, and by expert students, 
testing the matter in the schoolroom in experimental 
classes, and observing the outcome of different methods 
under varying conditions. Much of this latter kind 
of material is doubtless of little scientific value; but 
on the other hand a considerable portion of it has 
been gained with quite as scrupulous regard for 
scientific method, perhaps, as Darwin observed in 
gathering the data for his great Origin of Species, or 
Spencer in gathering the data for any of his treatises, 
or as the sociologist or pathologist of to-day observes 

^ The Mind of the Child ; Development of the Intellect. (Part 
II., Of The Mind of the Child.) Translated by H. W. Brown. 

^ Notes on the Development of a Child ; and the Biography 
of a Baby. 

3 First Five Hundred Days of a Child's Life, Child Study 
Monthly, Vol. II., pp. 330 et seq., 394 et seq., 458 et seq., 522 et 
seq., 586 et seq., and 650 et seq. 

^ The First Three Years of Childhood. Translated by Christie. 

^ The Language of Childhood, American Journal of Psychol- 
ogy, Vol. VI., pp. 107 et seq. 

® A Preliminary Report on the Learning of Language, Peda- 
gogical Seminary, Vol. II., pp. 424 et seq. 

' How Children Learn to Talk, Science, September, 1891. 

^ The Psychology of Infant Language, Psychological Review, 
Vol. I., pp. 63 et seq. 

® Studies of Childhood, chap. 5. 

^° Lingual Development in Boyhood, Popular Science 
Monthly, Vol. IX., p. 129. 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 39 

in his investigations of the phenomena in his field. 
For example, take the material relating to the teach- 
ing of the mother tongue contributed by Hall/ Hins- 
dale,^ March, ^ Jacobi,^ McMurry,^ Scudder,^ Bain,^ 
Laurie,^ and Balliet.^ These observers are dealing 
directly and constantly with the matters of which 
they treat. The educationist working in this way often 
comes into more direct contact with his material than 
does the historian or the sociologist, or even the biolo- 
gist in a considerable part of his work. 

27. But yet it must be acknowledged that, when com- 
pared with the other sciences, very httle of genuine 
worth regarding the value of studies, and the modes 
of treating them to develop their full value, is coming 
to us from any source. The men in the normal 
schools are not utilizing their unsurpassed opportuni- 
ties to observe the outcome of studies and methods upon 
developing children. These schools are, theoretically, 
research schools in part or laboratories where the 
conditions needful for investigation of a high order 
are supplied, — where problems may be simphfied and 
the operation of individual factors in the teaching 
process observed. They are supposed to be the exper- 

* How to Teach Reading, 

^ Teaching the Language-arts : Speech, Reading, Composition. 
^ The Spelling Reform. Bureau of Education, Washington, 
1893. 

* Physiological Notes on Primary Education. 
^ Special Method in Reading, 

* Literature in the Schools. 
' On Teaching English, 

^ Lectures on Language and Linguistic Method. 
" Association of Ideas in Reading, Add. and Proc. N.E.A.J 
1893, pp. 756-760. 



40 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

imental stations in teaching, and education is more 
liberally supplied mth them than is agriculture or 
biology or medicine. In 1898 there were in the 
United States alone above three hundred^ of these 
institutions, public and private; and if but one-fifth 
of them should undertake scientific work, still this 
number ought to achieve very important results. 

But the normal school belongs very largely to 
the genus shop rather than to the genus lahoratory. 
It spends its energies in applying what it thinks is 
truth rather than in adding to the body of truth, or 
even in testing in any critical way what it has inherited 
from times past. And 3^et it may be said in justice 
that though the normal school is not undertaking 
original investigation, it is doing something in sift- 
ing out the wheat from the chaff in the grain that 
comes from other fields. It is encouraging to note 
that it is conceded to-day " that the normal school 
should do a broader work than it has done in the past; 
it should aim to originate as well as to test and apply. 
Even if it accomplishes but Httle in tliis direction, 
yet what it does achieve must in any event be ad- 
mitted to the rank of scientific knowledge under the 
same rules that obtain respecting the products of all 
laboratory research. The need of original investigation 
in education is recognized in the estabhshment of a 
group of institutions designed more particularly as experi- 
mental schools, and conducted in such a manner as to 

* See Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1898-99. 

^ See report of a ''Committee on Normal Schools," Add. and 
Proc. of the N.E.A,, 1899, pp. 836 et seq., for a discussion of the 
field of work for the normal school. Also F. E. Bolton, 
Original Investigation in Normal Schools, Education, May and 
June, 1900. 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 41 

give opportunity for a critical, scientific exploration of 
unknown or debatable regions in education, — the 
Practice School at Jena/ the Chicago Institute, the 
Elementary School of the University of Chica^o,^ and 
the Speyer School, Columbia University. In these 
schools the phenomena for investigation can be exam- 
ined directly, at first hand, and conditions can to a 
considerable extent be varied to meet the necessities 
for experimental work. 

§ 4. The Child-study Movement. 

28. Most significant of all the present-day tenden- 
cies in the experimental stiid}^ of education, however, 
is the Cliild-study Movement,^ which is seeldng more 
or less successfully to employ methods of precision 
in the investigation of the problems of teaching. 
There is, of course, much difference of opinion re- 
garding the worth of the results which have been 
attained thus far. On the one side, enthusiastic in 
praise of the Movement, are such men as Hall,^ Barnes,^ 

^ See an article describing it in Add. and Proc. of the N.E.A. 
for 1896, pp. 644 et seq. 

^ See Dewey, The School and Society, pt. 4. 

^ See Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1892-93, 
Vol. I., chap. 10. ; and 1897-98, Vol. II. pp. 1281-1390. See also 
Wiltse, A Preliminary Sketch of the History of Child-study in 
America, Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. III., pp. 189-212, and 
Vol. IV., pp. 111-125. 

- See the following references : Child-study as a Basis for 
Psychology and Psychological Teaching, in Report of the 
Commissioner of Education, 1892-93, Vol. I., pp. 357, 358, 367- 
370; Child-study the Basis of Exact Education, Forum, 
Vol. XVI., pp. 429 et seq.; Research the Vital Spirit of Teaching, 
Forum, Vol. XVII., pp. 558 et seq. 

^ See numerous articles by Barnes in Studies in Education, 
ten numbers. 



42 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

Sully/ Buisson,^ and scores of the best thinkers of 
our day in matters pertaining to human nature. On 
the other side, declaring against much of what is done 
in the name of Child-study, is Miinsterberg,^ and a 
band of followers. But it will hardly be denied that 
the majority of men competent to form a judgment 
regard the investigations upon the development of 
the child-mind, and the effects of various influences 
upon it, now being prosecuted with such vigor and 
enthusiasm, as, in considerable part at any rate, gen- 
uinely valuable. Direct observations and statistical 
investigations are made with something of the exact- 
ness and completeness of detail in the field of men-* 
tal development by such persons as Preyer, Hall, 
Shinn, Baldwin, and others,^ that were attained by 
Darwin in the field of biology, or Newton in physics, 
or Galileo in astronomy. 

29. In much that has been done, without doubt, the 
wheao and the chaff have been gathered indiscrimin- 
ately, but this defect is not pecuUar to research in educa- 
tion. In every field the corn and weeds grow along- 
side one another, and at first they may not be readily 
distinguishable. It is only when the crop is matur- 

^ See Babies and Science, Cornhill Magazine, Vol. XLIII., 
pp. 539 et seq.; also The Child in Recent English Literature, 
Fortnightly Review, N. S., Vol. LXI. pp. 218 et seq.; and the 
New Study of Children, Fortnightly Review, LVII., pp. 723 
et seq, 

^ Buisson has recently organized an international society 
for the scientific study of children. 

^ See his article on Psychology and Education, Educational 
Review, Vol. XVI., pp. 105 et seq. 

* See Miss Wiltse's Preliminary Sketch, etc., referred to above, 
for a partial statement of what has already been done in this 
field. 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 43 

ing that the true character of the weeds becomes ob- 
vious, and they are killed off by the farmer or are 
choked out by the more lusty growth of the corn. 
Nature in her own works is never precise, in the sense 
that she produces only that which is truthful to fact. 
There is always excess, superabundance; there is the 
misfit as w^ell as the fit; there is error as well as truth. 
But in the long run truth, being in accord with the 
world-order, will survive and error will be crushed 
out. Whewell ^ and others have shown that in the 
initial period of every science which is accorded high 
rank to-day there is nothing but a mass of supersti- 
tions, traditions, and a few exact observations; and 
then the first work of the scientists consists in put- 
ting everything to a test which will determine its 
worth, and in this way to cull out of the heap of stuff 
what little is valuable, to which additions will grad- 
ually be made. 

One might truthfully say of Child-study what Pearson 
says ^ of anthropology and kindred sciences — ^' Our more 
thorough classification, however, of the facts of human 
development, our more accurate knowledge of the 
early history of human societies, of primitive customs, 
laws, and religions, our application of the principle 
of natural selection to man and his communities, are 
converting anthropology, folk-lore, . sociology, and 
psychology into true sciences. We begin to see in- 
disputable sequences in groups of both mental and 
social facts. The causes which favor the growth or 
decay of human societies become more obvious and 
more the subject of scientific investigation. Mental 

* In his History of the Inductive Sciences. 
2 Op. cti., p. 16. 



44 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

and social facts are thus not beyond the range of sci- 
entific treatment, but their classification has not been 
so complete, nor, for obvious reasons, so unprejudiced, 
as those of physical or biological phenomena." 

§ 5. The Evolutionary Point of View. 

30. Without doubt the chief reason why men have 
seen education in such different lights is because they 
have viewed it from different standpoints. They 
have brought to the study of the phenomena of human 
nature different apperception masses, and this has 
led each to give his own particular interpretation to 
what has been seen. One who conceives that man 
was made out of hand for the purpose of self-realiza- 
tion through earthly experience is certain to make 
what is presented to his sight fit into this picture. He 
will ignore whatever is out of harmony with it, or fail 
to detect the real attributes of the thing, which he ex- 
amines. Another man who believes that human life is 
but a " wail between two abysses of nothingness," will 
behold the situation marked with peculiar colorings; 
and if he turn educationist he will form characteristic 
notions respecting the end and processes of training. 
Again, one Avho regards the human organism, both 
mind and body, as having been developed through a 
process of adjustment to environing forces will be 
certain to arrive at conceptions of education quite 
distinct, in some respects at least, from his fellow- 
inquirers. We should expect, then, that there would be 
some such divergence of opinion in respect of details, 
and perhaps in respect of fundamental principles, 
as we have found in the teachers of times past. 
There has been no great organizing principle which 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 45 

has been maintained by the eminent thinkers of old^ no 
common viewpoint regarding the origin of man's 
powers, the uses to which they were to be put, and the 
modes of making them most effective in the attain- 
ment of the ends for which they exist. 

But is it too much to say that contemiDorary scien- 
tific thought is reaching such a principle, which most 
men accept, and which makes clear the meaning of life 
as it is manifested in the world, and so brings order and 
system out of chaos? Since the publication of Darwin's 
Origin of Species, indicating how all forms of life have 
been developed, how they have come into possession of 
various organic and mental powers, men have grown 
to feel that we have at last a great law which points out 
whence man's faculties have come, what is their raison 
d'etre, how they are designed to be employed, and what 
conditions are essential for the attainment of the highest 
success in individual and social life. The evolutionary 
viev/ has come to be taken in every field of biological 
investigation; and in this view is seen the rationale of 
much at any rate of the phenomena of human life. As 
Le Conte has said ^ " the leaven of evolution and the 
evolution method have leavened the whole lump of 
human knowledge, especially in all those departments 
which are too complex to be subdued by other methods. 
This method is applicable not only to plant and animal 
life, but also to all the phenomena of human life, indi- 
vidual and social, and therefore to psychology, to lan- 
guage, to history, to sociology, and to ethics. In fact 
the enormous recent advances in all these are due wholly 
to the use of the so-called historic method." Some one 

» Add. and Proc. N.E.A., 1895, pp. 154, 155. 



46 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

has said that Darwin's great book came just in time to 
save many of the finest spirits from despair; it gave a 
point of view in which w^ere harmonized all the varied 
phenomena of life, and particularly of human life, many 
of which in any other view appear to be incompatible, 
antagonistic, inexplicable. 

31. As we might expect, this evolutionary principle 
has rendered great service to education. It has 
thrown floods of light upon the most fundamental 
problems with which education is concerned. It has 
pointed out conclusively, for most men at any rate, that 
the requisite for successful living is adjustment to the 
environing world of people and of nature, although the 
precise significance of adjustment may yet be a matter 
upon which men are not universally agreed. It has 
illumined many of the dark places in psychology, show- 
ing, not in detail only, but in a large way, for what 
end the mind of man has been fashioned, of what it is 
capable, and under what circumstances it w^ill function 
most effectively. It has presented us with a sketch of 
the origin of mind and its gradual development through- 
out racial history, so that we may see what powers have 
been created from time to time, and to what end.* 

And if we get grounded properly on these fundamental 
matters we have a basis for the interpretation of the 
details which are involved in educational processes. We 
are placed in just such a situation in this respect as the 
physicist who demonstrates in his laboratory certain 
laws, and then uses them for the explanation of phe- 
nomena in every part of the universe to w^hich he can 
gain access, but where experiment is impossible. The 

*Cf. Le Conte, op. cit., p. 155. 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 47 

educationist is not less scientific than the physicist, if 
he proceeds to extend certain great fundamental prin- 
ciples respecting the nature of human life and the man- 
ner of its response to environing influences, to the inter- 
pretation of details regarding the behavior of mind under 
educational agencies, including the effects of particular 
studies and different modes of presenting them, and the 
purpose and method of discipline in the school. 

32, The doctrine of evolution has given a special 
bent to all biological science, and as much to psychology 
as to any other branch. Jastrow has pointed out ^ that 
the modern conception of the mind as a ''growth proc- 
ess" and as functioning for the sake of adjustment to a 
complex environment has cleared up a great many dark 
places in psychology. We have come to realize that 
there is a vital connection between the human and the 
9,nimal mind; and mind everj^where in the universe 
is connected by bonds of blood relationship. Every 
ohase of human life and achievement viewed from this 
new standpoint becomes more intelligible ; the reason of 
things becomes more apparent and everj^where there is 
clearer perception '' of the increasing purpose that 
through the ages runs." The evolutionary mode of look- 
ing at mind has led us to see that the individual mind 
is not a thing apart by itself, but functions with refer- 
ence to other minds, with reference to the social life 
about it. The individual mind, as Dewey says,^ re- 
ceiT'es its support continually from other minds. It 
operates through the stimulus which it receives from 
them. This conception is forced upon us by evolution, 
which shows us that any individual mind is the product 

*The Psychological Review, Vol. Vin.» pp, 6, 6. 
' The Elementary School Record,. No. 9. p. 223. 



48 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

of an infinity of ages of effort on the part of the race, and 
it is developed in an '^ environment which is social as 
well as physical, and social needs and aims have been 
most potent in shaping it." 

33. This view of mind as a reacting mechanism has 
caused educationists to consider it as dynamic instead 
of static ^ in its behavior; as existing for a purpose; as 
having been fashioned with reference to the require- 
ments of adaptation to environing conditions. The 
present-day psychologist regards the mind as a func- 
tional organ, a view which the older psychologists rarely 
gained, and lacking which they were unable to explain 
satisfactorily the raicon d'etre and relations of human 
faculties. One is impressed with this as he sees the 
struggles of Herbart to co-ordinate the phenomena of 
mind which he observed in his own consciousness and 
in the men around him. We feel that he saw many 
isolated things correctly, but we realize that he could 
not possibly correlate them properly; he could not get 
them into a rational s^^stem, because he did not take 
the functional view. He beholds a conflict in the 
mental life; he sees ideas struggling desperately with 
one another for supremacy, and he discerns certain 
rules of the game, certain conditions which determine 
the combative power of different ideas, but he does 
not see why there is this warfare. And he must fill 
out the gaps in his observations from his mathematical 
field instead of from the biological field, to which the 
subject he is dealing, with properly belongs. So, too, 
with Hegel; we are told he has studied mind at first 

* The conception of things as static, fixed, unchanging formerly 
ruled in every field of thought — Cf. Le Conte, op cit , pp 155, 
156. 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 49 

hand; but he has looked upon ideas as existing for the 
sake largely of existence, and combining and recombining 
in various ways, but the reason for this is not found in 
the needs of adjustment. The whole field of subcon- 
scious activity, which evolution makes reasonably clear, 
was a terra incognita to many early philosophers, and 
led them to devise innate faculties and other things, 
which, while doubtless accounting in a way for many of 
the phenomena occurring in daily life, yet carried them 
far afield in the inferences which were drawn therefrom. 

So one might look at the theories of other psychol- 
ogists and find that the lack of a conception of the 
mind as a functioning organ, as a medium for the 
securing of adjustment, resulted in the construction of 
a more or less fantastic psychology, seeking to explain 
the phenomena of experience by some metaphysical 
or religious notion. Only the half of mind was taken 
into consideration, — the whole active, expressive side 
was overlooked. " The older psychology was a psy- 
chology of knowledge, of intellect," says Dewey.' 
Little heed was paid to the emotional and active parts 
of one's nature. The psychologists ta"iked continually 
about sensations, but little was ever heard about move- 
ments. People formerly did not conceive that an 
intellect functioned for the sake of controlling action. 
If ideas and feelings did exert an influence upon con- 
duct it was an accidental and not an inevitable matter. 

34. Now some persons may feel distressed that mind 
is thus regarded as a means to an end — as a tool, they 
may say. Unhappily the use of such terms, having 
been associated with menial things in the physical 

* The Elementary School Record, No. 9, p. 224. 



50 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

world, inspire prejudice against real and lofty things 
in the mental world. The mind of man, as the educa- 
tionist must deal with it, is truly a tool, if one will 
think of it in that way; or it is a most wise and trusty 
guide, counsellor, governor, if one will look at it in 
another way. And the thought needs repetition that 
the educationist has to do with man's career in the 
w^orld in which he is placed. He has to deal with 
capacities that are capable of modification, of stimu- 
lation, of improvement by educational agencies. If 
there be powers of the human spirit which cannot be 
affected by such influence, then the educationist as 
such can have no concern whatever with them. He 
may as a man entertain whatever belief seems reason- 
able to him, but as an educator he has no choice what-^ 
ever but to regard the mind as a reacting organism, 
taking an active attitude toward all stimulations 
for the purpose of getting into proper relation with 
them. The educationist can make no headway if 
he gives himself up to speculations about an *' indeter- 
minate, self-evolving first principle." His function 
is to bring forces to bear upon a being that will re- 
spond to them and be moulded by them. All the talk 
about a ''divine" and ''free" and "spiritual" being 
can do nothing for the teacher if it stops with this. He 
must know what a human being is on his active, dy- 
namic side, for this is all that he can influence. 

This is the conception that is coming to dominate 
modern educational thought, and its soundness is 
testified to by the historv^ of mankind. What David- 
son has said^ of the effects upon the conduct of men 

' Aristotle and the Ancient Educational Ideal, p. 232, 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 51 

in ancient times of metaphysical speculation could be 
repeated of mere philosopliizing of this sort in all 
ages in respect of its effect upon the educator. " The 
sober fact was/' he says, 'Hhat the contemplation 
of divine things, which more and more absorbed the 
energy of Greek thought, was, except for Aristotle, a 
mere vague aspersion without moral value, and became 
evermore a sort of mystic ecstasy, in which the in- 
dividual instead of acquiring insight and power to 
live worthity and beneficently in the world, was thrown 
back upon himself with his will paralyzed." 

§ 6. The Practical Needs of the Teacher. 

35. It remains to be pointed out that this method 
of viewing education, which is most helpful in the 
development of the subject on its scientific side, is also 
most serviceable to the teacher as an artist. We have 
heard enough in our day to be impressed with the 
fact that the study of abstract psychology adds little 
to- the effectiveness of the teacher's work. What he 
stands most in need of is to get en rapport mth 
his students; to instinctively feel the direction in 
which the current of their lives runs. But the "mental 
science" which has been pursued by candidates for 
teaching has been about as remote from the real life 
of the schoolroom as geometry or astronomy or any 
other subject. A static view of human nature can 
never throw much light along the instructor's way. 
But it does not seem unreasonable to say that modern 
psychology, which shows mind functioning for a pur- 
pose, and this to obtain mastery of the environing 
world, — such study as this will afford the teacher vantage- 
ground from which to gain an outlook over his field 



52 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

and to see the significance of much that is occurring 
therein. And not only will he see the significance of 
things, but he will gain some insight into the means 
of directing them so as to attain the great ends toward 
which education should move. 

Such a treatment of education will not attempt to 
give the teacher dogmas which can be put into opera- 
tion on all occasions without modification. It will 
aim rather to place him at a point of view from which 
he may discern more clearly the meaning of what he 
beholds in any individual Ufe with which he is deahng.J 
Certain very general principles, or bases of interpre- 
tation perhaps, must hold in all cases; but there will 
be a special way in which they are exemphfied in each 
individual life. The problems of education presented 
in this way will enforce upon the teacher the conception 
that all individuals tend in certain general directions, 
but they may travel by quite different routes. It will 
liberahze his regimen in the school, making him less of 
a dogmatist and more of a naturalist. And we are 
here at the real gist of the matter. The teacher ought 
to be a naturalist of a certain high type;* he ought to 
be a student of the fives under his care, bringing to 
his study those general conceptions which are truth- 
ful to the nature of mind in the large view, and aiming 
to see their appfication in special ways in individual 
instances. If he can come to look upon the children 
before him as inheritors of the accumulated wisdom of 

* Cf. Royce, Is there a Science of Education? Educational 
Review, Vol. L, pp. 15-25 and 121-132. Also articles by the 
writer as follows: Teachers by the Grace of God, Journal of 
Pedagogy, Vol. XIII., No. 1; The University Study of Educa- 
tion, The School Review, Vol. VIII., pp. 157-181; Concerning 
High-school Teachers, School Review, Vol. X., pp. 778-795. 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 53 

racial experience in the effort to get adjusted to the 
environment; if he can further regard them as strug- 
gling unceasingly on their own part to learn the world, 
and adapt themselves to it; and if he can in addition 
work his way through some of the detailed processes 
which are involved in. the attainment of this end, he 
will have made the best preparation he can for the 
discharge of his duties. 

36. But there will doubtless be some who will main- 
tain that this leaves the teacher too much in the air; 
that such a treatment of education is too thorough- 
going; that it makes the subject too complex for his 
comprehension. It has been said over and over again by 
pedagogues, more earnest it is to be feared than wise, 
that what the teacher needs is a few simple formulas; 
and this theory has been duly recognized in the books 
that have been prepared for the teacher. Most of 
the volumes on pedagogy that have been made in 
our country in the last seventy-five years show 
how men have tried to state the involved, intricate 
principles of education in brief, universal dogmas, 
which, as they have thought, could be quickly and 
easily memorized by the teacher, who has little time 
for study and slight capacity for the comprehension 
of difficult things. Nowhere apparently has formalism 
been more evident than in the training of the teacher. 
The normal schools have in the past been great dis- 
pensaries of formalism; they have taught rules rather 
than human nature; they have tried to make the 
teacher a shopman instead of a naturalist. Now 
an attempt to present a complex field of thought and 
action in simple dogmas must result in formalism; and 
while memorizing of this sort of thing may do for 



54 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

the tyro, who would have it appear that he possesses 
knowledge, still it makes a very poor equipment for 
one who must grapple with real situations in the school- 
room. 

Would it not be far better to leave the teacher 
in his native condition of mind, depending upon his 
tact and instinct to guide him aright in schoolroom 
situations, than to force upon him dogmatic proposi- 
tions that are certain to lead him astray if he en- 
deavors to push them out into action. Payne ^ puts 
the matter in the right light when he says that ''we 
incur a grave danger when we impose on a teacher a 
specific rule for action divorced from the principle that 
is its justification. Contrasted with a principle, a rule 
is undiscriminating, narrowing, unfruitful; and it 
must be confessed thatUystematic training in method 
has a tendency to rob the teacher of his freedom, his 
versatility, and his personal power. Method has an 
incomparable value when it directs capitalized energy, 
wisdom, and culture; but method is taught at some 
sacrifice of scholarship and culture when it accompanies 
a teacher's instruction in subjects, and is made a char- 
acteristic element in his course of study." 

37. And finally, if it be said that what the teacher 
needs is not principles but" something '' immediately 
practical," then it may be replied that no such thing 
can be secured in any important sense. The things 
which are to be made immediately practical are only 
too likely to be grossly dogmatical, formal, and untrue 
in many situations. The practical thing is the truthful 
thing always; and the truthful thing is never, in edu- 

' Contributions to the Science of Education, p. \diL 



THE DATA FOR A SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 55 

cation, a body of simple dogmas that can be learned 
by heart, and that can have universal validity. There 
is only one sort of thing which is genuinely practical 
for the teacher, and that is the spirit and method of 
the naturalist in the highest sense, and as complete a 
knowledge of human nature as can be obtained. Any 
course that attempts to run across lots will pass by 
the only objects of value in the preparation of the 
teacher. When the destination is reached by a short- 
cut route the traveller will find that he has no ex- 
perience which will make the phenomena that present 
themselves in his new quarters intelligible. 

And further, one will not be accused of dogmatism 
when he asserts that the teaching profession ought to 
acquire a much greater appreciation of truth for its 
own sake, without regard to what is called its immediate 
practical application, than it has manifested hereto- 
fore. Truth pursued for its own sake will always 
lead to beneficial results; but sought after merely for 
some practical end it is often never attained and the 
end is never reached. In the words of Comte ^ ''the 
most important practical results continually flow 
from theories formed purely with scientific intent, and 
which have sometimes been pursued for ages without 
any practical result. A remarkable example is fur- 
nished by the beautiful researches of the Greek geom- 
eters upon conic sections, which, after a long series 
of generations, have renovated the science of astronomy, 
and thus brought the art of navigation to a pitch of 
perfection which it could never have reached but for 
the purely theoretic inquiries of Archimedes and 

* Quoted by Fiske, Cosmical Evolution, I., p. 252. 



56 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

Apollonius. As Condorcet well observes, the sailor, 
whom an exact calculation of longitude preserves from 
shipwreck, owes his life to a theory conceived, two 
thousand years ago, by men of genius who were think- 
ing of nothing but lines and angles." 



PART 11. 

THE MEANING AND AIM OF EDUCATION. 



CHAPTER TV. 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION-^OME COMMON VIEWS. 

§ I. The Agencies Concerned in Education. 

38. In an older day the term Education commonly 
denoted the effects produced in the minds and morals 
of the young by the instruction and discipline of the 
school alone. Men did not regard the influences out- 
side of the classroom as educative in the true sense, 
for these were not thought to equip a person in any 
way for the serious work of the world, or to model 
his character after a suitable pattern. 

But in these times it seems to be generally believed 
that in the broadest view all phases of the environment 
that act upon the child, and that set up any manner 
of response in him, contribute to establish his course 
in life, and so are truly educational for him. And 
still, looked at from one standpoint, education may 
not inappropriately be regarded as confined to the 
work of the school, for no other institution is main- 
tained for the sole purpose of training the young. 
The home has other duties to discharge; its efforts 

57 



58 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

must be directed largely toward providing for the 
physical well-being of its members — toward securing 
food, clothing, and shelter. It cannot to any great 
extent in the present social order plan its organization 
and marshal it forces with an eye single to the edu- 
cational needs of the children. Financial and other 
demands draw heavily upon its resources, and what 
it does for the child's education is fortuitous, or acces- 
sory, though happily this is not without value. 

Again, the street cannot properly be called an educa- 
tional agency. The training to be had from it must 
really be acquired in spite of it, or at least with in- 
difference on its part. It presents to the learner of 
life's ways just the situations and conditions which 
are most favorable to the carrying forward of commer- 
cial enterprises. It takes no thought whatever of the 
pupil who is absorbing its lessons, such as they are. 
If he can profit by them, and is not in the way, he is 
welcome to all he can get from them; if he cannot, 
why then the street must not be censured, for its mis- 
sion is of another sort. 

Still again, the boy in the give-and-take experiences 
with his fellows on the playground has developed in 
him those traits, and only those, that advance the 
temporary interests of the group to which he belongs. 
He acquires nothing more than is necessary to be 
learned in order that he may get on here and now 
with this particular set, and the learning may of course 
be good or bad according to the quality of the group. 
The adaptations he makes, while they are of immediate 
service, may be detrimental to him in later life. His 
companions do not have his future welfare in mind, 
only their own present pleasure. True, what is thus 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION. 59 

gained is often, it may be usually, of inestimable ser- 
vice in the fitting of the child for right Hving with 
his fellows in maturity. Still the discipline is in- 
cidental; it is never adequate to the needs of even 
the lowest and simplest forms of social life, and it ter- 
minates early in the career of the majority of children, 
long before the process of maturing is complete. 

39. But it is different with the school. Its resources 
are devoted fully and of set purpose to the sole end 
of amplifying and directing the child's thought, and 
fashioning his character. All its appointments, all 
its mechanics, all its energies, are planned with the 
child's present needs and capacities and future well- 
being in view. The school is, then, par excellence, the 
instrument of education in modern society. 

40. Among peoples who have not evolved beyond the 
simplest stages of adjustment to their physical environ- 
ment, whose community hfe is primitive, and who have 
no records in written language of their achievements in 
the sciences and the arts, — among such no school is 
needed, for the child can pick up by informal dail}^ in- 
tercourse with his elders all that could be taught him 
by any member of the group. If there happen to be 
some subtleties relating to religious belief and worship, 
or to the recognition of the special rights of favored 
persons in the tribe, these can be impressed in a few 
lessons at the parent's knee before the child emerges 
into manhood or womanhood. 

41. But what a different course the child bom among 
civilized men has before him. What realms of knowl- 
edge he must explore, and what powers he must acquire 
that he may support himself according to the standards 
01 siviiization, and that he may dwell in the spirit of 



60 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

brotlierly love with his fellow-man! Everything has 
become so complex with us, and there are so many 
subtle and intricate arts to be mastered, if one is to 
keep in the race at all, that training cannot be left to 
chance. The child must give himself to the business 
of learning almost from the very beginning, and must 
keep steadily at it until he is called upon to play his 
own part in the social drama. So the school becomes 
an absolute necessity, having to do for the child what 
the home and the street and the playground cannot 
do for him. But still it must be recognized, and this 
is essential for a right view of either the curriculum, 
the character of discipline, or the method of teach- 
ing, that the training of the school does not differ in prin- 
ciple from that of outside instrumentalities. The real 
distinction lies in the degree to which it systematizes 
educational agencies, the dehberation and single- 
mindedness with which it proceeds in its work, and the 
thoroughness with which it concentrates its forces upon 
the developing child.^ 

§ 2. The Aim of the School. 

42. So, narrowing our view down to the school, we 
need to inquire as to the goal which it has or ought 
to have clearly in view. The studies we will cause the 

^ So we would say with Bain, that "in the widest sense of the 
word a man is educated, either for good or evil, by everything that 
he experiences from the cradle to the grave. But in the more 
limited and usual sense the term education is confined to the 
efforts made, of set purpose, to train men in a particular way — 
the efforts of the grown-up part of the community to inform 
the intellect and mould the character of the young; and more 
especially to the labors of professional educators or school- 
masters." — Education as a Science, p. 3, 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION. 61 

learner to master, and the manner in which we will present 
them to him^ must, of course, be determined by this goal. 
Now, when we ask the people we meet on the street 
and in the drawing-room what they regard as the aim 
of education — for what purpose they support the 
school — we find that opinions are about as numerous as 
are the people who offer them. The man of affairs will 
tell you that the school "should equip the pupil with 
the means of getting on in life; of earning his daily 
bread." Try another man, who is not so much con- 
cerned with industry and money, and you will be started 
on a different track. For him the school may exist to 
''train the mind," to '^ discipline the faculties," to 
''make perception and memory and reason keen and 
accurate and faithful." Still another will assure you 
that the end to be aimed at in all education is "cul- 
ture." The school must seek to develop in one gentle, 
refined thought and feehng. It must give him grace 
in speech and manner, so as to make his intercourse 
with others tolerable. Or again, it is the business of 
the school to "mould the character of the young," to 
make them honest and just and temperate and 
truthful, and pure in mind and action. And then one 
will hear often enough that the school should strive 
to make man a "harmonious being" by awakening 
and nourishing all his powers — physical, mental, and 
moral; that it should lead him to " participate in the life 
and accompHshments of the race"; that it should pre- 
pare him for "complete living"; that it should afford 
him an opportunity to acquire learning; — and so one 
might go on at great length without exhausting the 
various answers to the question, "What should be the aim 
of the school? 



62 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

43. And when one looks up the views of the great 
men of the past who were the oracles of their times, 
and who have left us their opinions on education, he 
will discover some such diversity of belief as exists in 
the pubhc mind to-day. Plato maintains ^ that it must 
fashion the Hfe of the individual in an all-round manner; 
that it must nurture every inherent potency, bringing all 
his faculties into a harmoniously developed whole; that 
it must '' give to the body and to the soul all the beauty 
and all the perfection of which they are capable.'^ 
Education must call into active being faculties native 
to every mind. There exist in embryo, or perhaps 
rather in potentia, in the human spirit ideal attributes, 
for which education must provide the opportunity to 
attain complete unfoldment. The purpose of all study 
and training is to bring the soul up out of the cave 
of ignorance, where only shadows of real things are 
perceived, into the open day, where it may behold the 
true light. And the training must proceed without 
reference to anything the individual will be called 
upon to do in the work-a-day world in which he is 
condemned to live his physical, though not his spiritual 
life. The child should not be allowed to think of 
practical matters, for this debases the spirit; " practical 
arts are degenerating." He must keep his eyes turned 

^ See the Republic (Davies and Vaughn) 502 (referring to the 
paging of the original Stephanus edition) to end of Book VII. 
See also 377 to 412, sections treating of the stories to be told to 
his "Guardians," the form in which the stories are to be told, 
the songs, harmonies, and musical instruments to be permitted in 
his ideal republic, and the physical education of the Guardians. 
Bryan's Plato as Teacher gives the parts of the Republic bearing 
directly upon teaching. 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION. 63 

upward toward '^real existence" and strive ever to 
attain unto pure truth and self-completeness. 

Certain aspects of this view have been frequently 
endorsed; in the form of statement at any rate, in 
modern times. The founders of the Prussian National 
System, for instance, speaking through the great 
Stein, state as the end of education " the harmonious 
and equable evolution of the human powers, by a 
method based on the nature of the mind, every power 
of the soul to be unfolded, every crude principle of life 
stirred up and nourished." ^ 

44, Question Aristotle and he will say ^ that education 
should help each individual to attain the highest degree 
of happiness by living a virtuous life as a citizen of a 
virtuous state. Virtue is the end of all educational 
endeavor; but this virtue has reference to the things 
of daily life, to one's duties toward his fellows, to his 
treatment of himself; — in brief it is practical virtue. 
Aristotle's conception of education may be appreciated 
best when contrasted with that of Plato. If we make 
the comparison, as Laurie does,^ ''we are struck by 
the modern spirit of Aristotle. The cultured and 
harmonious man is not an object of concern with him 
but only the capable and virtuous citizen. Let each 
man be sound in body and virtuous, and Aristotle 
is content. He demands, however, that he be capable 
also of enjoyment and that he shall enjoy." 

45. Coming down to more recent times we find Locke 

' Donaldson, Lectures on Education, p. 38. (Quoted by 
Bain, Education as a Science, p. 1.) 

2 See Politics, Book VII., chap. 17 to end of Book VIII., 
Jowett's Translation. 

' An Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education, p. 318. 



64 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

declaring that '^'tis Virtue, then, direct Virtue, which. 
is the hard and valuable part to be aimed at in Edu- 
cation. . . . This is the solid and substantial Good 
which Tutors should not only read Lectures and talk 
of, but the Labour and Art of Education should furnish 
the Mind with, and fasten there, and never cease till 
the young Man has a true Relish of it, and plac'd his 
Strength, his Glory, and his Pleasure in it." ^ And 
Locke's virtue is, like Aristotle's, practical in character. 
Mere goodness is not what he wants, but a knowledge 
of the world, and the capacity to deal effectively with 
it. This is Rousseau's view of the matter, too, in its 
essential features. He would consult nature to ascer- 
tain what she designed the child to become, and then 
he would strive to achieve this in his education, to the 
end that the individual might be at peace with himself 
and the world when he reached maturity. For Rousseau 
nature and not nurture, the woods and not the Academy, 
will best supply the conditions for the healthy evolution 
of the child's soul. According to Herbart/ education 
should aim at the development of a symmetrical char- 
acter, one in which there will be ready and sympa- 
thetic response to the varied interests which should 
receive one's attention. And when we come to Spencer, 
if we may here mention one so modern, we get the 
first glimpse of what one might call the biological view 
of education, — the view that an individual's well-being 
is at all times conditioned by the forces operating in 

* Thoughts on Education, sec. 70. 

' See his Science of Education, etc., translated by H. M. 
and Emmie Felkin. Also Herbart and the Herbartians, 
edited by De Garmo, and Outlines of Educational Doctrine, 
translated by Lange. 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION. 65 

his environment, and education must prepare him to 
put himself en rapport with these, and to turn them to 
profitable account. 

§ 3. The Doctrine of Unfoldment. 

46. In the midst of much seemingly great diversity 
of opinion ^ there is in reality considerable uniformity. 
There are what for practical purposes one might call 
types of aims, which differ from one another according 
as they are founded upon different conceptions of 
human nature. One of these conceptions, which has 
been the source of a large body of educational doctrine 
variously stated by various writers but much the same 
in substance, regards man on his spiritual side as an 
entity set apart from everything else in the universe, 
and possessing powers and attributes which find their 
raison d^etre in simple existence as ends in themselves. 
This is Plato's conception, as we have seen. The 
mind is anchored temporarily in a physical world, 
but it is not a part of things material. It comes to 
perfection by reacting upon the world, but it has not 
been given to man for the purpose of his employing it 
in adjusting himself to the world. According to this 
view the mind of the child must be unfolded so that 
all its faculties may be spread out to the light, as the 
bud should be brought to flower, in order that the 
purpose of its creation may be fully realized. " Life," 
says Hailmann,^ in developing the purpose of education, 

*See Putnam, A Manual of Pedagogics, pp. 13 et seq.j for 
many diverse statements of the purpose of education, in addi- 
tion to those given above. 

»Add. and Proc. N.E.A., 1899, p. 584. See also Davidson, 
Education as World-building, Educational Review, 1900. By 



66 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

*'is a process of self-realization, the innermost essence 
of life is the instinct of self-expansion. Life is a process 
of becoming, a continuous growing toward what may 
lie more or less vaguely concealed in the depths of 
instinct, or stand revealed more or less clearly in the 
ideal of self-conscious will." 

People who see the child in this light fix their gaze 
on the spiritual heights which they feel he is destined 
to attain, rather than on the child himself, as he works 
his way slowly from a state of helplessness to a point 
where he can maintain his existence by right adjustment 
to the forces which play upon him, and wdth which he 
must come into a certain kind of correspondence if he 
would survive in the struggle for life. Such persons 
cannot bring themselves to regard the mind as given 
to man to enable him to attain the greatest amount of 
pleasure and reduce pain to the minimum in the world 
in which he is placed. They consider this to be an 
ignoble conception of the human mind. So they arrive 
at the conclusion that the purpose of education is to 
afford opportunity for the expansion, as it were, of 
those ideal attributes which are possessed in embryo 
at the start, or to supply the conditions by which they 
may become " realized." This is the conception running 
through all the educational writing of Froebel ^ and 

"world-building" the author often seems to mean the evolution 
of the internal world without special reference to what is ex- 
ternal; but in the following quotation he has the environing 
social world in view: "The aim of education is, as we have seen, 
world-building, the construction in the child's consciousness 
of such a world as shall furnish him with motives to live an 
enlightened, kindly, helpful, and noble social life." — Davidson, 
A History of Education, p. 257. 

* See his Education of Man, and Education by Development 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION. 67 

his disciples, as well as Hegel/ and many another 
educator of a philosophical turn of mind. In strict 
logic it makes little difference what materials the schools 
employ for this purpose, or how they proceed, only so 
that they attain the supreme end, the unfolding of the 
faculties of the soul. Browning expresses this concep- 
tion when he makes Paracelsus say; 

"Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate'er you may believe. 
There is an inmost centre in us all, 
Where truth abides in fullness; and around, 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
This perfect, clear conception. . . . 

. . . And, to know. 
Rather consists in opening out a way 
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape. 
Than in effecting entry for a light 
Supposed to be without." 

47. This view regards all powers of the physical and 
all attributes of the spiritual being as existing in and 
for themselves, and for no ulterior end. Strength and 
symmetry and grace of body should not be striven 
after or developed by education for any practical 
purpose. Beauty should indeed be sought after, but 
for its own sake, and so with every other desirable 
quality. Likewise reason and hope and reverence and 
love, and all intellectual and emotional properties of 
the soul must be aroused and nourished by the school 
only for their inherent, self-referring value. Every- 

(both translated and published in the International Education 
Series). Most of the literature relating to the kindergarten 
is full of the Froebelian philosophy of unfolding innate faculties 
tiirough the discipline of education. 
^ See Luqueer, Hegel as Educator. 



6S EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

thing is inner and self-relating in this doctrine that 
may, perhaps, be called the doctrine of Unfoldment. 
Studies and methods must be selected with reference 
to their suitability to exercise mental faculty, and so 
bring it to perfection without regard to the manner 
in which the energies of the individual will be expended 
in the practical, concrete life of maturity. What we 
must do is to ^' nourish the mind of the child through the 
course of study . . . , and to provide the opportunity 
for the exercise of all his powers, mental, moral, aes- 
thetic, manual, or constructive, through good instruc- 
tion and wise discipline." ^ Professor Hanus thus 
states his view of the aim of education, but he pro- 
ceeds at once to work out a scale of values based 
on the aim of bringing the individual into most intimate 
correspondence with his environments, ajid of giving 
him a mastery of the forces which condition his well- 
being. 

48. It is without doubt true that most of those 
whose faith rests in the doctrine of Unfoldment as 
the chief end of educational effort anticipate that 
the results of a system of training based there- 
upon would be of some practical avail. Every advo- 
cate of Unfoldment, except Plato possibly, would 
doubtless admit that as long as man dwells here below 
he is subject to physical needs and appetites and limi- 
tations, and must maintain himself in constant re- 
lation to his fellows who have needs and appetites and 
limitations of the same sort as his own; and further, 
he is furnished with a mind which is everlastingly 
curious to ascertain how things that environ it are 

* Hanus, Educational Aims and Educational Values, p. 17. 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION. 69 

put together, and how they work, and by virtue of what 
causes and to what end proceed the forces which in- 
cessantly play upon him and stimulate him to some sort 
of action. And education ought to aid him to deal 
wisely with the problems which arise out of these 
situations, either by showing him how to solve them 
or to put them out of his attention. So, as a matter 
of fact, self-realization does not really ignore absolutely 
the real, concrete side of life. Reason brought to 
fruition will give the pupil insight into the constitution 
of things ; it will point out a way for him to go in order 
that his journey may be most comfortable and success- 
ful. The soul, self-realized on the side of honesty, 
will be the better prepared to fit in harmoniously to 
the social mechanism. So every power of the self- 
realized soul must play some part in adjusting its 
possessor to the world about him. But still the out- 
come of Unfoldment as a guide to the teacher in the 
management and instruction of the school is not likely 
to be the same as if he had aimed directly at equip- 
ping the child for the exigencies of his daily life. 

§ 4. The Doctrine of Formal Discipline. 

49. Of all the aims of education that have been 
entertained from the earliest times that of Formal 
DiscipHne has probably been the most conspicuous. 
Men holding to the view that the human mind contains 
in embryo from the very beginning the full measure 
of intellectual and emotional faculties,^ have declared 

* "According to the older view mind was mind, and that was 
the whole story. Mind was the same throughout, because 
fitted out with the same assortment of faculties whether in 
child or adultc If any difference was made it was simply that 



70 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

that in the school these must be stimulated, trained — 
disciplined ^ is the word — not for the purpose of unfold- 
ing precisely, but in order to develop power and effi- 
ciency. If in the school memory be exercised vigorously 
upon one kind of material or another — it really makes 
littie difference what it may be — then in after years the 
mnemonic power thus acquired in childhood days 
may be put to good account as emergencies may 
require. So Morgan argues ^ that education should 
afford suitable conditions for the gaining of sense- 
experiences and the correlation of sense-data. And to 
what end? That the child may be fitted to "deal 
practically and effectually with his natural environ- 
ment." But should these sense-experiences relate to 
the natural environment, or is this immaterial? This 

some of these ready-made faculties — such as memory — came 
into play at an earlier time, while others, such as judging and 
inferring, made their appearance only after the child, through 
memorizing drills, had been reduced to complete dependence 
upon the thoughts of others. The only improvement that was 
recognized was one of quantity, of amount. The boy was a 
little man and his mind was a little mind — in everything but 
size the same as that of the adult, having its own ready- furnished 
equipment of faculties of attention, memory, etc," — Dewey, 
The Elementary School Record, No. 9, p. 225. 

* See Tate, Philosophy of Education, who talks continually 
about "disciplining the faculties" in education. He represents 
a large body of pedagogical writers. Among the latest pro- 
fessional books written from this standpoint is Dexter and 
Garhck's Psychology in the Schoolroom, where one reads 
^bout training by formal discipline the powers of observation 
(pp. 91, 92), memory (p. 132), etc. See also Barnet, Common 
Sense in Education, and the Report of the Committee of Ten, 
where the value of a study is often said to depend upon its 
adaptability for formal training. 

^ Psychology for Teachers, pp. 223, 224. 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION. 71 

is the vital question, and the disciplinarian answers it 
by saying that it is exercise of the remembering faculty 
that is needed, and it makes little differenx;e what 
is employed for this purpose. 

Then again the school must aid in the " development 
of the perceptive and rational faculties, and the correla- 
tive powers of apprehension and description and of 
comprehension and explanation"; and this must be ac- 
complished by formal training so as to develop a general 
power which may be called upon for service later.' 
If one can get his pupil to observe anything through 
any sense in the school, and if he can keep him at it 
long enough, there will be developed in him a power 

* Morgan has on other occasions spoken more pointedly of 
education as having to do with directing one's reactions upon 
the world instead of disciplining mental faculty in a formal way. 
Witness the following: "Aristotle saw this long ago. 'The 
end of our study is not knowledge/ he said, 'but conduct.* 
And it is no less true to-day than it was then, that the acquisi- 
tion of knowledge is the means, but the right conduct of life is the 
end. Leviathan Hobbes emphasized it when he wrote, 'The 
scope of all speculation is the performance of some action or 
thing to be done.' Compte summed it up in an epigram: 'We 
gain knowledge in order to predict, and we predict in order to 
provide'; or, far more pithily in the original French, 'Savoir 
pour prevoir, afin de pourvoir.' Our own great Huxley insists 
upon it. 'Knowledge of every kind/ he says, 'is useful in 
proportion as it tends to give people right ideas, which are 
essential to the foundation of right practice, and to remove 
wrong ideas, which are no less essential foundations and fertile 
mothers of errors in practice.' Even thought itself must be 
active, as Clifford maintained in his panegyric on Whewell of his 
Cambridge days. 'Thought is powerless,' he said, 'except 
it make something outside of itself; the thought which con- 
quers the world is not contemplative but active.' " — The Springs 
of Conduct, p. 214. 



72 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

or habit or tendency or capacity, or whatever it 
should be called, that may in maturity be applied to 
the perceiving of anything and everything, — linguistics, 
mathematics, science, law, theology, or what not. 
The principle is illustrated especially well in the formal 
training of reason. If the teacher will stimulate his 
pupil to work through all the problems in the arith- 
metic, and parse all the words and diagram all the 
sentences in the grammar, he will by such exercise 
generate in him abihty to penetrate into the heart of 
whatever he attacks. Pinning their faith to these 
dogmas, men " insist upon regarding college studies as 
disciplines by means of which these habits and dexter- 
ities, mental and physical, may be formed, or, in populai 
terms, by which these powers may be developed and 
strengthened. This ideal is pushed so far at times that 
it seems to imply the possibility of developing power 
as a sort of abstract energy to be stored up and avail- 
able at will. It might also be inferred that power to 
do one thing can be easily drafted off for the perform- 
ance of a very different task." ^ 

According to this conception mind is so constituted 
that it can take any item of experience and use it for 
full value on every occasion without regard to the 
time, place, circumstances, or conditions under which 
it was gained. Mind receives impressions and makes 
such use and disposition of them as it may at any time 
will to do. It is not limited in present or future action 
to what it has done in the past; special exercise begets 
general power; good reasoning in cube root will give 
skill in reasoning in everything. Mind is self-contained, 

* Vincent, The Social Mind and Education, p. 118. 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION. 73 

self-regulated, acting according to principles of its own 
■without regard to the environments in which it is born 
and bred, as it were. It can take particular experiences 
and use them in a general way in all kinds of situa- 
tions.^ 

§ 5. The Doctrine of Acquisition. 

50. If one should say that Plato and John Sturm 
constructed their theories of education upon similar 
fundamental principles he would probably awaken 
doubts in the minds of most teachers; but nevertheless 
their conceptions of the human mind seem to be based 
upon much the same general view. These philoso- 
phers both regarded it as a thing apart from the world 
in popular phraseology; and while it gains in strength 
and appreciativeness by reacting upon this world, 
yet this reacting, this learning, one might say, looks 
toward the good of the individual in a spiritual rather 
than in a practical way. Sturm's application of this 
conception to the educational process led him, as it did 
his contemporaries, and many since his day, to lay 
chief emphasis upon the acquisition of knowledge as 
the supreme end of education.^ Learning develops 
native faculties, makes active innate potencies, frees 
the mind; in short it constitutes the via trita, via tuta 
to noble, self-realized manhood and womanhood. How 
much do you know? is the shibboleth of the Stur- 
mians; not What can you do? or How does your learn- , 
ing enable' you to adjust yourself more intimately and 

* This theory is examined in detail in Chapters XV. and XVI. 

' See the article on Sturm in Schmid's Encyclopaedia. There 
is a resume of the opinions of his day in Quick, Educational 
Reformers, pp. 27 et seq. 



74 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

broadly to the world? This is what might be called 
the doctrine of Acquisition, which has played so promi- 
nent a part in determining curricula and methods. 
It has enthroned knowledge-getting, and has evaluated 
studies and modes of presenting them according as 
they are adapted to attain this end. Dewey tells 
us/ referring to the workings of this aim, that in the 
schools of the past knowledge for its own sake became 
a thing of primary value. Great emphasis was laid 
upon the acquisition of abstract ideas and generaliza- 
tions. Verbal formulae constituted the principle things 
in the curriculum. On the other side, protesting 
against such formal training, were the advocates of 
sense-training; they wanted pupils to have contact 
with things, so they introduced object lessons into the 
school course. But neither side attached any impor- 
tance to connecting the training of the school with the 
practical affairs of life. 

§ 6. The Doctrine of Utility. 

51. Regarded in its simplest aspect (the only one 
many people can discern) the summum honum of life 
consists in the earning of one's daily bread with the 
least effort and pain. One's happiness is dependent 
upon his skill in doing this, it is often said. The pur- 
pose of one's education, then, will be to make him a more 
ready and successful laborer; to give him deftness and 
power to win from nature and from man the necessary 
means for his subsistence. Education viewed in this 
light appears ^'brutally utihtarian." Indeed, all that 
goes on in the schoolroom is intended to make tha 

» The Elementary School Record, No. 9, p. 224. 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION. 75 

individual ever more efficient as an instrument in 
dealing with material things, to make him a better 
machine that he may advance his own physical well- 
being and possibly that of others who depend upon his 
labor. Downright material utility is the aim of educa- 
tion based on this view of human life. There are no 
pains and pleasures of the mind as there are of the 
body. If one is well fed and clothed and housed he 
will be happy whether or not he understands the world 
about him. It is of no great consequence either whether 
or not he is surrounded by things aesthetic; the pains 
occasioned by an ugly environment are trivial when 
compared with the bodily pains which come from not 
having enough to eat, for instance. Such is the view 
of the crass utilitarians ; they cannot see that one bears 
any vital relations to his environments but those of 2 
material character. 



CHAPTER V. 
THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 

§ I. The Modern Conception of the Nature of Life. 

52. It is a commonplace fact that the rapid develop- 
ment during the past half century of the biological 
sciences has given us data for a philosophy of life in 
general which is, in its bearings upon human life, sug- 
gestive to the student of education. Biologists seem 
to be agreed in the view that every living thing, no 
matter where it is found in the scale of life, is such 
because it possesses the capacity, differing of course 
in different species, to adapt itself to the environment 
in which it is placed. It is conditioned by all the forces 
which act upon it, and the degree of its ability to adjust 
itself to them determines whether it will survive or 
perish, whether it will have a vigorous, buoyant, effect- 
ive life, or simply keep from being destroyed. Life im- 
plies the power and necessity of adaptation. The 
forms of life found in the sea, while they are fashioned 
on certain general plans seen in the modelling of all 
life, yet differ in details from the life of the land, and 
the life of the air is different from both, these differences 
finding their explanation in the needs of the different 
species for adjustment to the pecuhar environments in 
which they are placed. \t is probable that, with 

76 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 77 

rare exceptions at the most, the minutest detail of 
construction of an organism has been selected because 
of its service in helping its possessor to live more per- 
fectly in this sense of adjustment. It was this consid- 
eration of serviceableness which led to the preserva- 
tion of the hand, and the eye, and the ear, and the 
upright position of the human body, and indeed every 
member and attribute of the organism. Each had to 
demonstrate its usefulness in supplying some need 
better than other devices previously tested would do. 
The most fundamental things in the body — the circu- 
latory system, the digestive system, the respiratory 
system, the eliininative system, the marvellously 
complex nervous system — all illustrate in the minutest 
detail this great plan, to make an organism that would 
be fitted to endure in a world of gravitation and chang- 
ing temperatures, of hunger and thirst, and all the rest. 
53. Nor is this all; permanent tenure of office is 
not assured to any member merely by its selection 
in the course of evolution. If it grows lethargic in its 
usefulness it is cast aside. We all know that organs 
which lie idle speedily atrophy.^ The price of develop- 
ment and permanency is use. Tie up the arm and the 
biceps will degenerate; bandage the eye and it will 
sooner or later lose its cunning. Even the brain un- 
used forgets its art,^ and the same is true of the lungs, 
the stomach, and every organ. And the activity of a 
member must be of the sort needed for the welfare of 
the organism; mere formal exercise is not enough. 

* See e.g., Sutton, Evolution and Disease. 

'The investigations made by Donaldson on Laura Bridg- 
man's brain show that unused areas became atrophied. See 
Amer. Journ. of Psych., Vols. III. and IV. 



78 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

Muscles grow by the performance of deeds which min- 
ister to the individuaFs welfare. Eyes and ears grow 
keen through seeing and hearing things that have some 
meaning for the organism. But this does not imply 
that the blacksmith, for instance, cannot train his 
muscles in any other way than by hammering at his 
anvil, or that he does not need anything but strong 
biceps. He is a man first and a blacksmith after- 
wards. He has relations toward other things than 
the horses to be shod and the wagons to be tired, 
and he must become adapted to these other things 
if he would attain complete adjustment. 

§ 2. The Aim Suggested by Neurology. 

54. The conception developed above reveals a hu- 
man being as active, dynamic; it imphes that the 
business of an individual during his earthly career 
is to get properly related to the world — religious, 
social, and physical — of which he is an integral part.* 
If this be a sound conception we should expect to see 
its truth illustrated in the architecture, so to speak, 
of the organism. The plan of construction ought to 
show that man was designed for a relational Hfe, and 
as a matter of fact it does reveal such a design. To 
begin with, modern neurology maintains that mental 
activity cannot be manifested in this physical world 
except it operate through a material organism, the 
brain.^ "Every psychosis is accompanied by a neu- 

* Cf , Locke's statement in his Essay on Study • Quick, Locke 
on Education, p. 196. 

* See, for instance, Ziehen, Introduction to the Study of 
Physiological Psychology, translated by Van Liew and Beyer, 
chaps. 4,5,6,8,9, 10; Ladd, Outlines of Physiological Psy- 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 79 

rosis" is one of the commonest of scientific expres- 
sions in these times. ^ And we should expect that 
the plan of construction of the tool would indicate 
the uses to which it was expected to be, and 
is capable of being, put. The possibilities, if we can 
discover them, in the field of neuroses must reveal, in 
a general way, the possibilities in the field of psychoses, 
although one may not dogmatize on this topic in the 
present state of our knowledge. That there may be 
psychical processes, or perhaps products, different 
from or more complex than those which always awaken 
or are awakened by neural processes is possible if not 
probable, as physiologists like Ziehen ^ believe. There 
may be synthetic activity in the mental life having no 
exact correlate in nervous action. But however this 
may be, it seems certain that in the large the sphere 

chology, chaps. 19, 20, especially p. 470; Donaldson, Growth of 
the Brain, chap. 18. 

^ The thought embodied in this phrase can be found running 
through much of the philosophical and psychological writing 
of the last half century at any rate. See the following, for 
example: Lotze, Microcosmus; Darwin, Descent of Man; 
Romanes, Mental Evolution in Man; Wallace, Darwinism; 
Fiske, Destiny of Man in the Light of His Origin; Wundt, 
Human and Animal Psychology, pp. 5-7 and 440-445; James, 
The Will to Believe and Other Essays, Essay on Reflex Action 
and Theism. 

I have summarized in my Aspects of Mental Economy, 
chaps. 1 and 9 the results of recent experiment relating to the 
effects of mental activity on cerebral action, which indicate 
that thought and feeling are always accompanied by neural 
action, as shown in increased cerebral circulation and tempera- 
ture, and in other measurable ways. 

' Op. city p. 2 and chap. 14. See also Ladd, o-p. ciL, chap. 20, 
and Wundt, op. ciL, p. 448. 



80 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

and purpose of mental action are denoted by the plan 
of the neural mechanism through which it is carried on. 
55. The plan of construction/ then, provides, in the 
first place, for mechanisms to receive data from the ex- 
ternal world — ^the sensory nervous system, comprising 
the ingoing nerves and the cerebral centres to w^hich 
they lead; and in the second place it provides for 
mechanisms to set the organism into action — ^the 
motor nervous -system, comprising the outgoing 
nerves and the cerebral centres from which they lead. 
The parts of these mechanisms of chief interest to us 
are the cerebral centres, in respect alike of the specific 
function each discharges, and of their relation to one 
another in supporting the life of the organism. Fig. 1 
shows the sensory centres grouped round the motor 
centres, to which they are so intimately related that 
when the former are stimulated the effect is trans- 
mitted through connecting fibres to the latter, which 
in turn institute motor activities appropriate to the 
occasion. It should be said in passing that some 
neurologists maintain that every nerve-cell is both 
sensory and motor in its action; but whichever view 
is correct the psychological inference would be the 
same in either case — ^the teleology of mental action 
being the reaction in some advantageous manner 
upon data received from the world environing and 
affecting the well-being of the individual. Fig. 2 
shows the plan of construction of a nerve-cell, indicat- 
ing plainly that it is designed to receive impressions 

* See Flechsig, Ueber die Localization der geistigen Vorgange 
(Leipzig, 1896), and Gehirn und Seele, for the latest statement;; 
also Barker, The Nervous System (New York, 1900), and 
Donaldson, op, cit. 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 81 

and to convey messages to the motor mechanisms, 
either directly or through the motor centres. Now, 
is it too much to say that Nature has designed that 




/^/r 




Fig. 1. — Brain of the Macaque monkey, showing the sensory and motor 
areas. In the sensory region the name of the sensation is over the 
locality most closely associated with the corresponding sense-organ. 
In the motor region the name of the part is written over the portion of 
the cortex which controls it. The uppermost figure gives a lateral 
view of the hemisphere, aild the lowest a mesal view. (Beavor and 
Horsley, from Foster's Physiology. Reproduced from Donaldson's 
Growth of the Brain.) 

when data are reported to us from the world we should 
respond in some suitable activity? As James has 
said/ the neural organism is, physiologically considered, 
just a machine for producing reactions upon stimuli; 

* Psychology, p. 370. 



82 



EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 




X 200 diameters. (Ober- 
steiner.) ^.neuron; Z?/, den- 
drons; N, nucleus with en- 
closures; P, pigment spot. 
(From Donaldson's Growth 
of the Brain.) 



and the intellectual part of one s being constitutes the 

middle or central term of thfe 
machine's operations. 

56. In young children it is 
seen that every impression of 
whatever sort which appears 
to have the slightest meaning 
for the organism is reacted 
upon immediately in some 
manner. Most of us have 

1? o T w ju J * , noticed this in a way: but 

Fig. 2. — Isolated body of a large . . ._ 

cell from the ventral horn of its Significance has been im- 

the spinal cord. Human 

pressed upon our attention by 
the investigations of Preyer, 
Perez, Shinn, Hall, Baldwin, 
and others.^ At first the char- 
acter of this action is determined by instinct, but as the 
child grows older and experiences accumulate, when 
he has acquired a body of memories deposited, to use 
Ziehen's term, as a result of his own contact with the 
world, then the behavior of the moment in response 
to a given stimulus is regulated in view of the out- 
come of previous actions in similar situations. Ex- 
perience thus serves as a guide in encouraging or re- 
straining present action; and this is what we would 
expect when we take into account the intricacy of the 
cerebral labyrinth (see Fig. 3). We find that any 
individual cell is related in a most involved manner to a 
vast number of other cells, so that it cannot act on its 

* See, for instance, Burk, Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. VI., 
No. 1, pp. 5-65; Curtis, Inhibition, Pedagogical Seminary, 
Vol VI., No. 1; Oppenheim, The Development of the Child, 
chap. 5. 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. S3 



own motion in a liasty or independent fashion. Any 
instructions wliich it 
sends out must pass 
through many hands 
before they reach their 
destination, and the 
purport of the mess- 
ages gets modified at 
every point in their 
transmission so that 
they finally express the 
combined wisdom of 
all. Tliis power of 
qualifying or inhibiting 
any given impulse to 
action may be devel- 
oped to such a degree 
in a mature brain that 
impressions often seem 
never to issue in con- 
duct. It appears in 
such cases as if action 
is incited wholly from 
wdthin, and not in re- 
sponse to promptings 
from without ; and this 
leads many to think 
that conduct is the out- 
working simply of the 
self, ha\dng for its end 
Belf-revelation, self-completion, and not correlation with 
the world- 




Fig. 3. — To show the arrangement of the 
layers of cells (left side) and that of 
the medullated fibres (right side) in the 
adult human cortex, occipital lobe. 
(Schematic, Meynert and Obersteiner.) 
P, the layer of pia with a blood-vessel; 
I-IX, the layers of cells as fouad in the 
cortex of the sensory regions. (Mey- 
nert.) I'-VI', the layers as they would 
occur in the cortex of the motor regions. 
The medullated fibres are distributed 
in the following layers, A-H. X in- 
cludes the outer group, Y the inner 
group, of tangential fibres. _ (From 
Donaldson's Growth of the Brain.) 



84 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

§ 3. The Aim Suggested by Present-day Psychology. 

57. The vital relation of the mental and the motor in 
human life is indicated in the results of experiments 
by Breese, who shows ^ that '^ in many trains of thought 
the content is almost entirely composed of the muscular 
complexes involved in the language of expression of the 
thoughts. The usual mental content accompanying 
such a word as ' bubble ' is inhibited if one tries to 
think the word with the lips wide apart. On the 
other hand, vividness of mental process is produced 
by an intensification of the motor elements accompany- 
ing the process. If, while engaged in some mental 
work, such as reading or adding a column of figures, 
one is distracted by stimuli foreign to the work, the 
attention may be held to the task by reading aloud, i.e., 
an increase in the intensity of the appropriate motor 
adjustments increases the stability of mental processes. 
A general intensified motor activity accompanies any 
attempt to overcome mental distraction. 

^^ The inhibitory effect which the suppression of motor 
activitv has ^pon consciousness is not limited to the 
vocal apparatus. It is general. The whole motor 
mechanism is involved in the psycho-physical processes. 
In general, inhibition of the motor elements tends to 
inhibit consciousness.^' 

So Wundt says ^ that emotion always produces 
physiological movements. Years ago Brown-Sequard ' 

* On Inhibition, Psychological Review, Monograph No. 11, 
May, 1899, p. 58. 

' Op. cit, p. 381. Cf. Shaw, The Employment of Motor Activ- 
ities in Teaching, Popular Science Monthly, Vol. L., pp. 56-66. 

^ See his Physiology and Pathology of the Central Nervous 
System. 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 85 

suggested the principle of dynamogenesis, the motor 
expression of mental states, which has recently been 
extended by Baldwin and shown to have universal 
applicability. The principle of contractility, he says/ 
which has been established in biology affirms " that all 
stimulations to living matter — from protoplasm to the 
highest vegetable and animal structures — if they take 
effect at all, tend to bring about movements or con- 
tractions in the mass of the organism. This is now 
also safely established as a phenomenon of conscious- 
ness — that every sensation or incoming process tends 
to bring about action or outgoing process." The 
peculiar effects of particular sorts of stimuli, which we 
commonly believe never issue in any motor effects, 
have been determined by experiment, as in the case 
of colors and tones. " The ticking of a watch is more 
clearly perceived if movements are made at the same 
time. Further, the reaction-time of hand movements 
is shorter if the stimulus (sound, etc.) be more intense. 
There is an enlargement of the hand, through increased 
blood pressure, when a loud sound is beared." ^ 

58. For what purpose, in the conception of modern 
scientific thought, has man been endowed with per- 
ception, memory, and reason? fear, anger, and love? 
If we seek to answer these questions by inquiring 
into the raison d'etre of mental activities in our- 
selves and in those about us we shall find that 

* Mental Development, Methods and Processes, p. 116. See, 
too, his Feeling and Will, p. 281. Also James, Principles of 
Psychology, Vol II., Chap. XXII. 

' Baldwin, op. cit., p. 44. See, also, pp. 165 et seq.; and 
Triplett: Dynamogenetic Factors in Pacemaking and Competi- 
tion, Amer. Jour, of Psychol., Vol. IX., pp. 501 et seq. 



86 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

thought and feeling always subserve the practical 
requirements of adjustment. As James has said/ 
the ends of thinking are of a practical character; we 
perceive, reason, and remember to help us to get on 
the right side of things so as to increase our pleasures 
and reduce our pains. Intellect is ruled by practical 
interests. Cognition is but a fleeting moment^ a cross- 
section at a certain point, of what in the large is motor 
phenomena. '^ In* the lower forms of life no one will 
pretend that cognition is anything more than a guide 
to appropriate action. The germinal question con- 
cerning things brought for the first time before con- 
sciousness is not the theoretic ' What is that ? ' but the 
practical ' Who goes there ? ' or rather, as Horwicz 
has admirably put it, ' What is to be done ? ' — ' Was 
Fang^ ich an 9 ' In all our discussion about the intel- 
ligence of lower animals the only test that we use is 
that of their acting as if for a purpose. Cognition, in 
short, is incomplete until discharged in act: and al- 
though it is true that the later mental development, 
which attains its maximum through the hypertrophied 
cerebrum of man, gives birth to a vast amount of 
theoretic activity over and above that which is im- 
mediately ministerial to practice, yet the earher claim 
is only postponed, not effaced, and the active nature 
asserts its rights to the end." ^ ' 

AVhen one puts to his own thoughts the question, 
What end have you in view? he will discover that 

^ The Will to Believe, etc., p. 114. See, too, his Prin. of 
Psychol., II., p. 379. Cf. the following: Titchener, An OutHne 
of Psychology, p. 98; Butler, The Meaning of Education and 
Other Essays, pp. 13-15 ; Guyau, Education and Heredity, p. 287. 

2 James, Ibid., pp. 84, 85. 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 87 

there is always some need to be ministered to, — some 
situation to be understood, and right action es- 
tabhshed with reference to it. It may be that there 
are phenomena in the physical world that must be 
looked into, and their causes and their outcome de- 
termined so that the appropriate behavicr with 
reference to them may be instituted. Or, more 
hkely, there is some relation toward one's fellows that 
thought is busying itself with, reviewing former actions 
and planning new ones. And to what end? Always 
that conduct may be so ordered that one may be kept 
in contact with influences that heighten the tide of life, 
that increase the sum total of health-giving influences 
— ethical, intellectual, physical — and that destructive, 
pain-giving forces may be avoided.^ As McLellan and 
Dew^ey have put it,^ our most profound tendencies, 
both instinctive and acquired, have for their aim the 
constant use of means to attain some sort of ends that 
have practical worth for us. 

59. If we tr}^ to follow the development of mind from 
its simplest beginnings in the race we see appearing 
one after another mental faculties whose function in 
adaptation is apparent. In the course of this develop- 
ment there appears a power which is of incalculable 
advantage to the animal so fortunate as to be endowed 
with it, — the ability to react to things in the environment 
in the light of previous reactions, so that the necessity 
of going over the original experiments again is obviated. 
In the beginning a creature could hardly tell whether 
an object would give it pleasure or pain without 

* Cf . Baldwin, Mental Development, Methods and Processes : 
chaps, on the Theory of Adaptation. 
^ Psychology of Number, p. 66. 



8S EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

really trying it. Knowledge of the properties of a 
thing could be obtained only by direct physical con- 
tact with it. But when visual and auditory perceptions 
are developed, properties of an object can be deter- 
mined without actual^ touching or tasting it. With 
the advent of these powers the sphere of adjustment 
was immenseh^ broadened and perfected; and surely 
their conservation is due to the fact that they have 
been of service to the individuals possessing them. 
The same is true of the other powers — imagination, 
reason, and the rest: each gives some distinct advan- 
tage in adjustment, and survives for this reason. 

60. These powers reach their highest stage in the hu- 
man mind. But they are so complex, and the correspond- 
ence of a human being with his environment is so broad 
and so refined, and the psychical processes involved are 
so delicate, so intricate, so elaborate, that it is easy to 
think they exist merely for the sake of existing. But 
is it not impossible to conceive that a certain plan 
should be followed in the building of the mind until 
human life is reached, and then that an altogether 
different scheme should be adopted? And why should 
a different plan be needed or desired? Perception is 
none the less to be admired, none the less ideal 
and spiritual, because it is concerned with the 
world of people and things which environs one, and 
which he helps to make, augmenting its pleasures and 
lessening its pains for all living things, or vice versa. 
Reason loses none of its divine character because it 
reveals to man the way in which the universe is organ- 
ized, and teaches him how his own behavior should be 
regulated so that he may co-operate with and not set 
himself against its forces. 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 



89 



Indeed one must have much greater regard for a mind 
that can thus be of service than for one that has no 
reason for existing other than to unfold itself or to be 
disciphned without reference to the environing world. 
One must behold with delight and ever-increasing 
wonder a thing which is capable of retaining old ex- 
periences, for example, so that they may be a guide 
for future emergencies. There is no inspiration in 
regarding memory as a reservoir designed to hold 
everything which is poured into it without respect 
to what it is or how it bears upon the course of life. 
There is deep significance in those researches of Helm- 
holtz's on the eye and the ear, which show that prac- 
tical utility determines what of the manifold things 
that appeal to us we shall be aware of, and what we 
shall ignore. " We notice or discriminate an ingredient 
of sense only so far as we depend upon it to modify 
our actions. We are acquainted with a thing as soon 
as we have learned how to behave towards it, or how 
to meet the behavior which Ave expect from it. Up 
to that point it is still ' strange' to us." ' 

61. Not only have the intellectual powers been de- 
veloped for the purpose of adjusting man to the world, 
but his emotions have the same end in view. For what 
reason has he become possessed of fear but that he may 
avoid the objects which will destroy him, eitlier physically 
or socially? And why should one have affection except 
that therebv he may become allied to his fellows in 
ways helpful to them and to him? When he can do 
unto others as he would be done by he promotes his 
own well-being and that of others. And so with aU 

'James, The Will to Believe, etc., p. 8-5. 



90 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

the other emotions; each one plays its part in bringing 
men into closer correspondence with the world — and 
not the physical world merely but the social and the 
sesthetic worlds as well. 

62. Many of us are apt to feel, as Plato did, that there 
is a phase of the mental life that is removed far above 
the needs of daily living, and is concerned alone with 
the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, which should 
be striven after for their ideal value, and not because 
they could or should exercise an influence upon our 
conduct. For Plato pure truth is at least three re- 
moves from the world of things, which is the '^ shadow" 
world; and to him the only worthy purpose of thinking 
appears to be the attainment of this abstract ideal 
truth, which can be reached only by dialectic. 

But the thing Plato regarded as pure truth we of 
to-day consider to be little more than a system of 
verbal propositions — the shadow of truth, to use his own 
descriptive term. Truth is apprehended only when 
the mind becomes adjusted to the world about it, sees 
the uniformities in phenomena, thinks in accord with 
the constitution of things. There is a kind of physical 
truth, too, which arises when the body is brought into 
harmonious relation with the physical world by which it 
is conditioned. Truth and Beauty and Goodness are 
just the agreement or congruence or harmony between 
the organism and its physical and social environments. 
Error and ugliness and sin result from opposition or 
antagonism or conflict between the organism and the 
environing world. In their effort to glorify the ideal, 
because they felt the real was common and base, it 
seems that the Platonists have overlooked the fact 
that when the soul is filled with thoughts of the True, 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 91 

the Beautiful, and the Good, and with emotions relating 
thereto, one's relations toward those about one w411 
be affected beneficially, and that therein lies the value 
of such thoughts. Professor Ladd must be right vvhen 
he declares ^ that the purpose of all our philosophizing 
is to discover how we ought to live, to see if it is worth 
while to make strenuous endeavors, or whether we 
should let things go as they may, or perhaps give up 
altogether. Again, our most complex sentiments and 
volitional acts relate to our well-being, either immediate 
or remote, either spiritual or physical. M. Espinas 
asks ^ what sentiment is if not the resultant of a '^ more 
or less obscure view of the dangers or disadvantages 
which may accrue to us?" And we answer, nothing 
more than this, if we include also the resultant of a 
sense of the advantages and pleasures which we antici- 
pate will accrue to us. Of course the complexity of 
the mental life makes it exceedingly difficult to track 
our thoughts and feelings out to their conclusion, and 
this leads us often to stop with the first part of the 
cycle as though it had no completion. The intricacy 
of this task has been indicated in an effective way by 
Maudsley, who says ^ that if we would search the 
depths of a person's character, in order to discern the 
motives of his conduct in every situation in life, we 
would be compelled to unravel his whole mental de- 
velopment, and undertake in historical retrospect '^ an 
analytical disintegration of the mental development 
of the race from its beginning." 

63. It seems proper to note here a point which will 

*A Theory of Reality; Introduction and first page. 
' Quoted by Guyau, op. cit., p. 287. 
3 Body and Will, p. 10. 



92 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

be discussed in detail later/ that while all ideas tend 
to influence conduct, yet their success in achieving 
this must depend, of course, upon the proper en- 
vironment being presented therefor. One may know, 
for instance, that wild animals are dangerous, and 
that the best thing to do when they present them- 
selves is to escape to a place of safety; but if no 
wild animals ever appear in his environment this 
knowledge will never materialize in action. So a 
farmer may have many ideas relating to the ancient 
languages, but while he is at work upon his farm these 
ideas with their correlated feelings cannot appreciably 
modify his action so far as the raising of his crops is 
concerned. His action in the present must be the 
outcome of impulses aroused by stimulations now 
impinging upon him and modified in their movement 
toward motor action by experiences, either his own 
or some one else's that he has appropriated, and that 
have been gained in the past by dealing with similar 
situations. 

It is difficult to see how the mind could have been 
worked out on any other plan and made an effective 
medium for adjustment. If action in a present situa- 
tion was not determined by the outcome of previous 
actions in similar situations how could adjustment 
ever be attained? Suppose that all ideas, no matter of 
what realities they are the representatives, tended to or 
even could influence conduct regardless of time and 
place and circumstances, what sort of a life would one 
live, anyway? When the engineer went to dinner with 
a friend his engineering ideas would be directing his 

1 In Part III. 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 93 

actions, and he would be dealing with his host as though 
he were a locomotive, or a bridge, it might be. So 
when the classicist repaired to his garden in the evening 
to hoe his corn he would look upon the tender blades 
as Greek roots, and he would react to them in a gram- 
matical way. Occasionally one sees something of this 
sort in asylums when the subjective has become alien- 
ated from the objective world, and new experiences 
do not awaken the appropriate memories, and so right 
adjustment is not secured ; men are animals, brooms are 
horses, and all is hopelessly confused. Sanity requires 
that in reacting upon a given environment those ideas 
and impulses only that relate thereto should be active^ 
for in no other way can adaptation be attained. 

§ 4. The View of Sociology and Ethics. 

64. Thus far we have glanced at the conceptions of 
human nature given by those sciences that regard man 
from the biological, evolutionary, neurological, and 
psychological standpoints, and we have found agreement 
in the evidence gained from these different sources, all 
suggesting the perfecting of adjustment as the end of 
educational effort. If we now regard our subject from 
the standpoint of the sociologist, we shall have this 
view re-enforced. The sociologist maintains that man 
is a social being, and he declares that his welfare de- 
pends upon his acquiring social insight and social good- 
will so that he may co-operate with his fellows in all 
the affairs of life. The sociologist always looks upon 
man as a reacting being; that is the point. Baldwin 
emphasizes this point in an elaborate way,^ showing 

* Mental Development; Social and Ethical Interpretations. 



94 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

that the largest part of the child's energies are ex- 
pended in getting adapted to his social environment — 
obeying it, imitating it, directing it, but always react- 
ing upon it. The child is never static in his relation 
toward people; he is not indifferent to them; whether 
he will or not he must assume an attitude toward them. 
Vincent has said ^ that "what we have been calling 
the powers or activities of the mind are nothing more 
than abstractions from concrete states of consciousness, 
and these always have a social content; . . . the in- 
dividual can exercise his powers upon social materials, 
and in attempting to secure for himself discipline he 
appropriates in some measure the social tradition, and 
may be the means of its transmission and further 
elaboration." 

Ever since Plato's day thoughtful men have realized 
that a human being cannot live apart by himself, think- 
ing and feeling without regard to the issue of mind and 
heart in conduct. The Republic, the Politics, and many 
a great work since Grecian days bears testimony to the 
belief of eminent thinkers in all times that an individual 
cannot be permitted to behave as though he were the 
only person in the world. "There is no individual 
man," says Professor Tufts,^ "for ethics, for psychology, 
for logic, or for sociology, except by abstraction — ^that 
is, if by individual man w^e mean a being not influenced 
by social forces — nor are there any feelings, thoughts, 
or volitions in any man w^hich are independent of such 
forces." Butler voices the opinion of most of the 
thinkers in the sociological and educational world to- 

* The Social Mind and Education, p. 92. 

'American Journal of Sociology, January, 1896, p. 455. 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 95 

day when he says/ — "The entire educational period 
after the physical adjustment has been made, after the 
child can walk alone, can feed itself, can use its hands, 
and has therefore acquired physical and bodily inde- 
pendence, is an adjustment to what may be called our 
spiritual environment." 

65. Education, then, from this point of view, must 
seek to develop social action; it can take no account of 
possible thought or feeling which exercises no influence 
upon one's behavior toward his associates in the business 
of Hfe. Professor Howerth has argued^ that the social 
aim in education is coming to dominate the thinking of 
educationists everywhere. There is a growing convic- 
tion that the school cannot have for its leading principle 
the improvement of the individual as an isolated being, 
although, as a matter of fact, genuine individual better- 
ment must, for the most part at any rate, result in 
advantage to the social whole. But still it is possible, 
as is shown in the sort of thing seen in monastic insti- 
tutions, to plan a regime where the individual - seeks 
to develop a virtuous life in seclusion. Here the mind 
is turned in upon itself, and the supreme end of exist- 
ence is thought to consist in purifying the soul by 
deeds having no reference to other souls. Life is a 
purely individuahstic affair, and goodness is attained 
by the discipline of self in a penitential way, rather 
than by conducting oneself in harmony with the rules 
essential to the well-being of the s6cial w^hole. But we 

* The Meaning of Education, p. 13. See, also, Vincent, op. city 
p. viii; Harris, quoted by Putnam, o-p. cit., pp. 14 et seq.; 
Dewey, Educational Creeds of the Nineteenth Century, pp. 1 
et seq. 

' Journal of Pedagogy, Vol. XIIL, Nos. 1, 2, and 3. 



96 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

are abandoning this conception of the ideal hfe, and 
are coming to the place where we may say, as Professoi 
Laurie does/ that the virtuous life is not one of con- 
templation simply, but of action; it is not abstract, 
but concrete, being comprised of daily and hourly 
virtuous acts. We would not, if we could, rear citizens 
who talk about \^rtue and "walk about displaying 
moral placards," but citizens who do their duty, and 
are "ever watchful over themselves in all the details 
of business and of social and family intercourse." 

66. If we turn now for a moment to the conception 
of a human being which ethics gives we will find 
that here, too, he is looked upon as an active being, 
one having relations always toward his fellows that 
must be brought as nearly as possible to the ideal. It 
is true that many ethical writers and teachers, from 
the days of Socrates,^ have busied themselves prin- 

* Institutes of Education, p. 32. 

' There is a good historical sketch by Henry Sedgwick in the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, ninth edition, Vol. VIII., in which 
is pointed out, I think, the fact that most ethical writers have 
had man's practical, relational life chiefly in view in the elabora- 
tion of their ethical systems, however much may have been said 
about absolute Right and Good and Duty. Of course a great 
deal of ethical writing has seemed to regard life only on the 
ideal side; one lives ethically in thought, not in deed. But 
the test of a system after all has been indicated in the 
question. How does it work in daily life? If one will follow 
out such writers as Locke, for instance, when he says, "The 
great Principle and Foundation of all Virtue and worth is 
plac'd in this; that a man is able to deny himself his own 
desires, cross his own Inclinations, and surely follow what 
Reason directs as best, tho' the Appetite lean the other Way," 
he will see that they reaUy have in mind the practical life. 
Why resist your desires? Because reason will lead you into 



THE AIM SUGGESTED BY MODERN SCIENCE. 97 

cipally with the discussion of ideal character, wherein 
the impression has often been conveyed that the ethical 
life is an individual, personal matter. But still the 
criterion of character in the last analysis has always 
been the outcome of conduct with reference to one's 
neighbors. Even those who feel, as Plato apparently 
did, that there is a Right and Good unrelated to social 
conduct, yet they think it desirable to have a system of 
practical ethics which will deal with man's concrete life, 
teaching him what is right and good in his treatment 
of his fellow-men. In recent times, though, ethics has 
concerned itself mainly with the active, relational life. 
We hear much now about the ethics of trusts, the 
ethics of business, the ethics of medicine, and so on. 
It is thus really the science of right in human conduct 
and the reasons therefor; ^ and in this sense its aim is 
to perfect the adjustment of men, and it can never be 
content with getting people to think about ethical 
behavior and not live it, if such a thing be possible. 
Man must indeed first think and feel what he does; but 
to stop at simple being, whatever that may be, with a 
creature whose life involves continual reaction upon 
external things would be to stop short of the com- 
pletion of life, which does not " consist in being and 
reverie, but in activity determined by the state of 
being." ^ Have not ethics and religion, in their vital 
forms in real life, if not in books, usually aimed to give 

more harmonious relations with men and things. Locke would 
not counsel resistance just for the sake of resisting; he expects 
that the power thus gained will be of advantage in the situations 
of every-day life. 

» Cf. Paley, Moral Philosophy, 1, I. 

'Laurie Institutes of Education, p. 24. 



98 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

direction to the issues of life, either patently or im- 
plicitly, paying attention to the heart only because this 
is the mainspring of all conduct? Account is takeu 
of what one thinks, because as a man thinks so is he. 
But it is not the activity of mind or heart 'per se that 
has really occupied the attention of men most familiar 
with human nature, but rather the outcome of such 
activity — conduct that is to say, or adjustment to the 
world. 



I 



I 

CHAPTER Yl. 

THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADJUSTMENT AS THE END 
OF EDUCATION. 

§ I. The Re-creation of Environments. 

67. Adjustment implies a process of fitting things 
together; of getting them into harmony with each 
other; of so relating them that the intentions, as it 
were, of each may be realized and not thwarted by 
acting in opposition to one another. So in order that 
this process may occur the things concerned must of 
course bear an active relation toward each other, and 
they must so deport themselves that there may be 
congruence and co-operation instead of antagonism 
or indifference between them. Static, sphinx-like 
bodies can never adjust themselves to each other, or 
to an3rthing else. And now when we speak of an 
individual adjusting himself to his environments, our 
language suggests that the environments are fixed, 
unchangeable, and that he conforms his actions to 
the demands of these changeless things. He must 
take things as he finds them, and conduct himself 
accordingly. The world cannot be altered; he must 
do all the adapting on his own part. If this were a 
correct view man would be compelled to eat the food 
that nature in her wild state produced for him. He 
would have to find shelter in the caves and dens which 

99 



100 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

he found ready to hand, or seek a temperature where 
the winds and weather would be tempered to him in 
his nakedness. So for his aesthetic wants he would 
have to depend upon the beauties spread before his 
eyes in the earth at his feet and the heavens above 
his head. Intellectually he would have to be content 
with such a knowledge of the plan and workings of the 
universe as he could derive from incidental observation. 
But such a view is, of course, exactly contrary to fact. 
Man, civilized man at any rate, is satisfied with nothing 
as he fhids it in its raw state. In whatever environ- 
ment he be placed he at once reacts upon it by modify- 
ing it so that it will the more fully minister to his needs. 
He does not accept the food which crude nature prof- 
fers him, but he manipulates the forces that produce 
food in such a way as to secure varieties and qualities 
and quantities that supply his physical wants most 
satisfactorily. He cultivates his fields and fertilizes 
them and tends his crops, and never lets nature work 
out her original designs, for his highest good is not 
promoted by her unaided and undirected efforts. 
And his love of what is beautiful is not satisfied by 
nature's art productions. He must make over practically 
everji^hing she has constructed until it comes to as- 
sume such forms and figures and designs as will afford 
him a feeling of harmony that is not awakened by 
most of the things he finds ready made. So man is 
ever remodelling, reconstructing, recreating his en- 
vironments; they are not static in his hands, or un- 
modifiable or permanent in their original fcrms. His 
spiritual and physical needs, not the environments, are 
the really permanent things in the adjusting process. 
Adjustment, then, does not mean that the individual 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADJUSTMENT. 101 

fits himself into the world, so much as that he makes 
the world fit him. 

68. The point in view here is brought out more 
clearly when man in his attitude toward the world is 
compared with lower forms of life. The amoeba takes 
things as they exist and adapts himself to them without 
making an effort to modify them. He accepts without 
complaint what food his habitat affords him, and he 
makes no attempt to cause two blades of grass to 
grow where one grew before. He pitches his tent- 
wherever night overtakes him; he does not bestir 
himself to make the objects that surround him more 
seemly and attractive than they are in their native 
state. In short, he does nothing to remodel the world 
in wliich he lives; it satisfies him just as it is. The 
fish, too, seems at ease in the enjoyment of things just 
as they have been provided for him by nature. But not 
so with the bird or the beaver; they find that the 
world in its original forms is not best adapted to their 
wants, so they work upon it and change it — ^they re- 
create it. It is not until human life is reached, though, 
that re-creation of environments can be said to be the 
really important factor in the process of adjustment. 
But here it is an evident truth that ''man is not the 
passive victim of his environment, but has such power 
of modification and control as either to transcend that 
enxaronment or virtually to re-create it." ^ 

69. Again, the term Adjustment, as it is ordinarily 
employed, suggests simply a mastery of the world 
which the race has already discovered, and some edu- 
cators seem to interpret it in this way. Education, 

* Philosophical Papers, University of Michigan, p. 12, 



102 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

they say, must strive to lead the individual up to the 
point which mankind has reached in its learning and 
its skill. He must be led to ''share in the intellectual 
and moral resources which humanity has succeeded in 
getting together. He becomes an inheritor of the 
founded capital of civilization." ^ Again, education is 
the ''process by which the individual is elevated into 
the species. ... It gives the individual the wisdom 
derived from the experience of the race — ^what nature 
is, what its laws are, and how it can be made useful 
to man; what the experience of human nature has 
been, what the manners and customs of men are, and 
what have been the motives which have governed 
human action." ^ Or in the words of Laurie, "reason 
in each has to be so trained that the young may in- 
telligently acquiesce, and so make the transmitted 
moral and spiritual life their own." ^ 

According to the letter of these propositions, if the 
school leads the pupil to assimilate into his own con- 
duct the adaptations which have been worked out by 
the community in which he lives it will have accom- 
plished its highest purpose. But this is manifestly an 
understatement of the case. It is assumed that the 
race has already achieved perfect adjustment — ^that 
the forces which condition human life are fully imder- 
stood; that all the possible modes of utilizing them 
for human advantage have been discovered; that an 
Ideal ethical and political life has been achieved. But 

* Dewey, Educational Creeds of the Nineteenth Century, 
fdited by Lang, p. 5. Cf. also Butler, op. cit., pp. 36, 37. 

' Harris, Educational Creeds of the Nineteenth Century, 
p. 36. 

2 The Institutes of Education, p. 27. 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADJUSTMENT. 103 

one needs only to glance at this doctrine to feel its insuf- 
ficiency. Since Darwin's day the thought has become 
familiar that the race is adapting itself to the world 
in a progressive way. A great deal has already been 
accompHshed, but it is likely that the half has not yet 
been done. We all know practically from the pains 
we suffer and the defects we bear that there are still 
to be made many points of connection between man ana 
the world in which he dwells. We possess capacities 
for correspondence which have not yet been exercised 
to their full limit, and needs that the experience of the 
race has not yet been able to minister to fully. So the 
individual must not only learn what has been done, 
but he must strive to make further progress; to be a 
discoverer of better ways of doing things — ^he must bff 
an inventor, that is to say. The school nmst awaken 
and nourish in him a disposition to keep making im- 
provements upon the tradition that he has inherited; 
to deal ^\dth situations in original ways as conditions 
demand. The housewife cooking just as her ancestors 
used to; the teacher applying formal and antiquated 
dogmas to every situation which arises in his school- 
room; the minister preaching a formal theology with- 
out reference to the needs of the men and women who 
listen to him; the farmer planting his corn and potatoes 
on a certain day of the year, as tradition advises him 
to do, regardless of the season, the climate, the soil — ■ 
such people have not the right attitude for the best 
adjustment to the w^orld. 

70. And then in the larger view, investigation to 
establish new truth is as much a function of education 
as the teaching of the truth that is known; both are 
essential for adjustment in the proper sense. As the 



104 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

school is found in most civilized countries to-day it is 
striving to accomplish more or less efficiently this 
double task — to lead the pupil into a mastery of what 
the race has achieved, and to develop in him the atti^ 
tude of the inventor. Vincent has pointed out^ that 
in earlier and simpler phases of social organization 
education was conducted in a haphazard fashion, 
parents transmitting to their children current beliefs 
and customs and simple dexterities; but as civilization 
has progressed instruction • has become more fully 
organized, until now all progressive nations seek not 
only to transmit to each new generation w^hat the 
race has discovered, but strives also to add to what has 
already been discovered, not only in matters of the 
intellect but also in matters of the heart and will. 

§ 2. The Supreme Aim in Adjustment. 

71. It was mentioned in another connection that the 
supreme end of human activity is the increase of pleas- 
ure in the highest sense and the diminution of pain. 
Doubtless men have always believed this more or less 
fully and explicitly, but it remained for Spencer^ and 
Bain^ and their followers to bring the principle directly 
before the minds of people, and to show its universality. 
Baldwin^ has worked the conception out in detail, 

^ The Social Mind and Education, p. 91. 

^ See Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., section 227 et seq. 

^ See his Emotions and Will, third edition, p. 318 et seq. 

* Most of his Mental Development, both Methods and Processes, 
and Social and Ethical Interpretations, is in one view de- 
voted to an exposition of the theory in its foundations and 
in its consequences; but see especially the Theory of Develop- 
ment, in Methods and Processes, chap. 7. 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADJUSTMENT. 105 

and he has left little room for scepticism regarding its 
validity. 

The question of just what pleasure, or perhaps one 
should say happiness, consists in must be put aside for 
the moment; what is important here is a recognition 
of the principle that the raison d'etre of all activity 
is tlie securing of stimulations which give pleasureable 
experiences. And the rationale of this is evident, 
since pleasurable experiences "heighten the tide cf 
hfe," preserve and strengthen the organism, give it 
greater power of endurance, and enlarge its scope of 
correspondence with the world. On the other hand, 
pain lessens vital action, tends to destroy the organism, 
is in a sense a warning to it that agencies are affecting 
it which are injurious to it. This fact is revealed m 
the psychological laboratory,^ where it may be shown 
that pain, whether organic or mental, reduces the vigor 
and amplitude, so to speak, of vital function. Titche- 
ner informs us^ that pleasantness expands the arteries 
running just under the skin, which results in the in- 
crease of bodily volume; a pleasant experience also 
produces deeper breathing, an increased pulse rate, 
and augments muscular power. On the other hand, 
an unpleasant experience has just the opposite effect; 
it lessens bodily volume, produces lighter breathing, 
weaker pulse, and reduces muscular power. 

72. The plan of the motor mechanism of the body, 
as Baldwin and others have observed, suggests that it 

^ See Angell and Thompson, The Relation between certain 
Organic Processes and Consciousness, Psychological Review, 
January, 1899. See also Mosso's Address at the Decennial 
Celebration of Clark University, pubUshed in the Proceedings. 

^An OulUne of Psychology, p. 103. 



106 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

was arranged with a view to the securing and perpetu- 
ating of pleasurable stimuli, and the fleeing from 
those which may cause it harm.^ There are the two 
great classes of muscles, the one class concerned with 
extension and employed in coming up to and seizing 
objects, and the other class concerned with contraction, 
and withdrawal and employed in getting away from 
objects. 

73. One who will follow a child in the undertakings of 
daily life will see how his activities are all directed 
toward the realization of this great aim; and while 
the complexity of adult life, in respect ahke of motives 
and of outcome, makes it difficult, if not impossible, to 
discern exactly the purport of many acts, still those 
we can trace are always headed in the direction of the 
eudemonic goal, in either the itnmediate or the distant 
future. There may be rough places enough before 
the goal is reached, but the prize, we think, is worth 
the struggle; the pleasurable end justifies the painful 
means. An inventory of one's thoughts and feelings 
at any moment will show that they are directed to- 
ward ends hedonistic — hedonistic in the broadest sense, 
not in respect of things physical alone nor principally » 

^ Pfeffer has shown that this same principle holds in plant life. 
The activities of a plant may all be reduced to the two great 
classes, those concerned with perpetuating pleasurable ex- 
periences, and those concerned with escaping from painful 
experiences. See the Revue Scientifique, December 9, 1893. 
Jordan and Heath show in their Animal Forms how every detail 
of structure from the bottom to the top in the animal series 
is determined by the supreme aim of securing pleasurable and 
avoiding painful experiences. They indicate in their Animal 
Life, too, that this same great aim rules in the mental function- 
ing of animals. 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADJUSTMENT. 107 

as Aristippus and his Cyrenaic school would have us 
believe. 

74. But there are those who will declare that their 
conduct is not shaped at all by the desire to attain 
happiness. Most persons are indeed strongly preju- 
diced in their theories against taking a view of human 
life which makes it seem to be anything less than a 
strenuous endeavor to do what is right, even though 
this causes pain, as it often does. It is maintained 
that in a large proportion of our activities we have 
no regard for the pleasure they may bring us; on 
the contrary, we know beforehand that many of them 
will produce discomfort. But yet, in order to obey 
the dictates of conscience and to discipline character, 
we resist the temptations of pleasure, and voluntarily 
bring pain upon ourselves. But is it not inconceivable 
that any sane person should conduct himself in a 
way calculated to augment pain-giving exjDeriences, 
except that he may as a result thereof attain pleasure- 
giving experiences of still greater moment? Xo in- 
dividual capable of preserving his life could be so 
indifferent to the effects of his action upon his well- 
being. How could life be maintained if pain were 
sought after as an end in itself ?^ Nature had to make 
pleasure a criterion of the perfectness of correspond- 
ence "^dth environment, and an impelling force to 
attain harmonious adjustment. And lack of corre- 
spondence had to be corrected by the stimulus of pain. 

* It is, of course, well knowoi to psychologists that certain 
neurotic individuals find a kind of pleasure in pain, but even 
here the end is pleasure, though strange means of attaining it 
are resorted to. These cases are, however, very rare, and are 
always pathological. 



108 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMLNT. 

which would stop the individual from pursuiiig 9 
line of conduct that would destroy his organism, or 
cause him to drop back upon a lower platform in 
the scale of life. Surely the prosperity of any living 
thing must depend upon the extent to which it can 
keep in contact with those phases of its environment 
that heighten the tide of hfe, and avoid those that 
depress it. And the same is true in principle of in- 
dividuals banded together and forming a social or- 
ganism. Pearson has well said^ that ''The sole rea- 
son that can be given for any social institution or 
form of activity — I mean not how they came to exist, 
which is a matter of history, but why we continue 
to encourage their existence — lies in this: their ex- 
istence tends to promote the welfare of human society, 
to increase social happiness, or to strengthen social 
stability/' And of course the strengthening of social 
stability will increase social happiness; if this were 
not so, it would never be encouraged. 

§ 3. Varieties of Pleasure in Human Life. 

75. "WTien one thus makes the end and criterion of 
conduct to be the attainment of pleasure he is sure 
to awaken misgivings in the minds of many, for the 
reason that this term indicates to them something of 
a physical character simply, and a sensuous character 
at that. It suggests luxury, dissipation, idleness, 
wantonness; and the race has learned that these 
are but a mockery, or worse, and the one who spends 
his days in the pursuit of them must make of life a 
gross failure. Sensuality cannot be the end of exist- 

' Op. cit., p. 8. 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADJUSTMENT. 109 

■ence; indeed people are coming to see that in a veiy 
real sense it limits the efficiency of the organism. 
It destroys endurance, and the higher and more com- 
plex functions of mind and body. It undoes, as 
Maudsley and others have pointed out, what has 
taken the race untold ages to develop. So man is 
struggling to get beyond the point where physical 
indulgence is made the end of endeavor. Bu' the 
desire for it is not 3^et eliminated from the human 
heart, and it must be combated without ceasing 
or it "vvdll gain ascendancy in conduct. life must 
be lived on a higher plane; the physical must be sub- 
ordinated to the spiritual parts of one's nature. 

And this doctrine has been maintained through- 
out the history of civilization by all great thinkers. 
No one to-day realizes its truth more>fully than did 
the Hebrew prophets or the apostle Paul, or Plato 
or Ai'istotle or Seneca or Marcus Aurelius or Thomas 
Aquinas or Goethe, or a host of other great teachers 
who have shaped the thoughts and purified the 
aspirations of people for the last twenty-five cen- 
turies. The civilized world has .long felt that the sub- 
jection of the physical to the social, the ethical, the 
rehgious in man's being, will result in the greatest 
good to the individual and to his fellows, and this 
is the view which is endorsed alike by science and by 
experience. Man has other relationships to his en- 
vironment than those of a purely physical character. 
Adjustment to the world means far more than the 
gratification of appetite. Man's organism has been 
so constructed that it responds to spiritual as well 
as to physical stimuli which impinge upon it. Surely 
this is in accord mth our conception of man as the 



110 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

highest species in the scale of life. If he could not 
touch the world on any other than a physical side; 
if he could experience no pleasure but that of a 
physical sort; if he could appreciate and react to no 
experiences but those derived from the immediate 
contact of material objects with his organism; if 
the social and religious worlds were not just as real, 
and if they did not determine his well-being in just 
as important a sense, then why should man be 
counted any higher in the scale of being than the 
amoeba? 

76. If it were the intention of nature that man should 
strive after physical pleasure alone, a serious mis- 
take has been made in giving him such a fearfully 
complex organism, where there is so great instability 
and so great likelihood of lack of correspondence 
producing discomfort and pain. The amoeba is the 
best device for attaining the sort of pleasure which 
is indicated in the term sensuality; for this simply 
organized creature is much less apt to be thrown out 
of rapport with its environment, and so to experi- 
ence the distress which ensues when a living thing 
loses its bearings. Have not most intelligent people 
long felt that if man exists for the sole purj^ose 
of securing that which relates to sense and appetite, 
his life must be regarded as a failure, for the pains 
in most instances outweigh the pleasures? Cer- 
tainly the momentary agreeable sensations of dissi- 
pation and sensuality are far outbalanced by the 
discomfort which they produce in the long run. But 
even physical pleasure in largest measure is secured 
only by strenuous living, which chooses the higher 
and permanent over the lower and temporary; 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADJUSTMENT. Ul 

which estimates strength and poise and agility and 
health above weakness and incompetency and dis- 
integration. Yfe are coming to see, as someone has 
said, that what is physiologically right is morally and 
socially right. There is no conflict between the 
proper demands of the different interests of the hu- 
man organism; they have been worked out so as to 
complement and support one another. 

77. There are then vital forms of pleasure beyond 
the purely physical to which man is able to re- 
spond, which his nature entitles him to enjoy, 
and which his education should prepare him to at- 
tain. It is evident that he was destined to perfect 
the adjustments which will secure these pleasures, 
and if he does not do so he will fail to reach the 
highest point which he is capable of attaining. 
Moreover, being endowed with impulses which urge 
on to the accomplishment of complete adaptation 
to the environments affecting the spiritual part of 
his being, he must suffer pain of the most serious 
sort if he cannot attain it. It is apparent that in 
the process of evolution man's being has been made 
sensitive to aspects of the world of which lower forms 
of life are unaware. In the amoeba every part of 
the organism may perform ail the offices of which 
any portion is capable; and, as a consequence, the 
animal can perform only the simplest functions of 
organic life — digesting its food and reacting me- 
chanically to objects in immediate contact with, its 
body. It has no knowledge of a visual or an audi- 
tory world; it can neither remember its past nor 
foresee its future; it lives to eat, and it is in a sense 
all stomach, with just enough equipment in other 



112 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

respects to achieve the great end of its existence* 
When we come to the hydra, though, we behold some- 
thing like a colony comprising several parts all work- 
ing together as a unit, but particular parts having 
charge of special duties, and being specially prepared 
therefor, of course. One group of cells becomes more 
sensitive than the others, and attends to the work 
of informing the colony what sort of objects exist 
in the environment; another group confines itself 
to digestion, another to locomotion, another to re- 
production, and so on. 

So if we look on through the whole scale of life 
/ we see at every succeeding stage greater deUcacy 
of response to the world in some respect, which 
implies a broader appreciation of the realities in 
the environment, and greater amphtude of adjust- 
ment. But an increase in the range of adaptation 
requires greater complexity of organization, an ex- 
posure to more stimulation, the power of response 
to new forces, and for an animal so organized 
prosperity depends upon meeting all these rela- 
tions successfully. The opportunity of coming in 
contact with the world in a large way implies 
the necessity of achieving that adjustment upon 
the penalty of destruction, partial or complete. One 
who has faculties must use them; if they are not 
employed in gaining the pleasures of higher adap- 
tation they will bring upon their possessor the mis- 
eries of lack of adaptation. Then when we see a 
human being so highly organized that we can discern 
only the chief types of his activities, we can appre- 
ciate the need of making his education do for him far 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADJUSTMENT. 113 

\nore than the sort of thing which would be appro- 
priate for a monkey or a savage. 

78. Without question the prima ly requisite in the 
life here below is the preservation of the body; 
Intellectual and moral modes of response were, in 
their incipient forms, designed to meet the physical 
needs of the organism. But in human life the spirit- 
ual interests have acquired a certain independence. 
There is no such complete ministration of thought 
and feeling to somatic needs as in the lower orders 
of life. The principle of development here involved 
is illustrated in a way in the different functions of 
vision in the mollusk and in man. In the former 
case the eye simply discriminates light and shade, and 
it is confined in its activity solely to apprising the 
animal of the proximity of objects which may do it 
harm, or of objects which will furnish it food. It is 
probable that the visual consciousness of the mollusk 
contains nothing but information regarding food or 
enemies. But the eye in human life while discharg- 
ing this primitive function does more; it reports the 
color and form characteristics of the material world; 
it gives appreciation of the aesthetic qualities of the 
environment without reference, directly at any rate, 
to their connection with the obtaining of food and 
shelter. 

Of course this information often ministers directly 
to the needs of the body, but it is certainly not 
the case in all instances. There is a kind of exquisite 
pleasure in color and form as such. Human beings 
find a worth in colors and forms apart from their 
significance as signs of somatic values. Man thus 
experiences pleasure when in contact with what is 



114 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

beautiful, while he suffers pain when he is exposed 
to stimulations from things ugly, while the mo Husk 
is wholly indifferent to these qualities in things. And 
the hedonistic consciousness awakened in view of 
the beautiful and the ugly is just as real and exerts 
the same effect in principle upon the individual's 
happiness in the world as do the pleasures and 
pains of a purely physical sort. And what is thus 
true of man's aesthetic sensitivity holds in a far more 
important sense of his ethical, intellectual, and relig- 
ious sensitivity. 

79. One who fancies that the hedonistic conscious- 
ness is confined mainly to somatic experience must 
have overlooked the pleasure or pain coloring of all 
one's intercourse with his fellows. Surely one runs 
no risk in saying that every possible social relation- 
ship into which a person may be brought will stimu- 
late reactions accompanied by more or less pro- 
nounced feelings of pleasure or pain. And what 
pleasure could be richer, could exert a more profound 
influence upon one's organism, than that which arises 
out of happy relations with the people about one? 
So, too, what pain could be more intense and destruc- 
tive than that experienced by a person when he is 
not adjusted harmoniously to those with whom he 
associates? When one is not thought well of by his 
neighbors; w^hen he is distrusted and driven from 
communion with his kind, what creature could be 
more miserable? So to be well thought of is worth 
more to most people than to be well fed and warmly 
clothed. It is easier to endure the pains of hunger 
and thirst than it is to forfeit the affection of those 
whom we love. 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADJUSTMENT. 115 

80. Every one will grant that an individual ought 
to know the world in which he lives on its physical 
side, so that he may best adjust himself to it, and 
thus derive from it all the pleasure it is capable of 
affording. But people have not so generally beheved 
that he ought to understand it on its intellectual side, 
too, for the pleasure which understanding gives, even 
though this does not directly, or perhaps even in- 
directly, relate to the gaining of food or clothing or 
shelter, or even to more perfect social adjustment.^ 
It will be readily acknowledged, though, that man is 
endowed with a mental constitution of such a char- 
acter that he strives ever to comprehend the struc- 
ture and processes of the universe of wliich he is a part. 
He is eager to know how the phenomena occurring 
unceasingly about him may be explained, what forces 
govern the operations of organic and inorganic nature, 
what power holds the sun and stars in their places, 
and so on ad libitum. The mind of man must put 
some interpretation upon the phenomena it beholds; 
it cannot remain static as it looks out upon the 
world. And how often is the explanation made in 
a superstitious way! The individual assigns a false 
cause to phenomena and then regulates his conduct 

^ I cannot agree -with those, as Dewej^, who maintain that 
every act has a direct social value, and should be determined 
by the outcome in social adjustment. My direct aim in studying 
astronomy is purely personal; it is, only indirectly social, though 
of course I study what has been worked out by society. But 
I want to resolve my own intellectual problems, and so I study. 
I may share what I get with my fellows, and make a better 
neighbor, but this is not the chief aim in my studying. So I 
buy a beautiful picture for personal enjoyment, and not for 
social improvement, though the latter result may follow. 



116 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

accordingly, with the result that he widens the gap 
between himself and his environments. 

And then man finds pleasure in knowing the world 
for the knowledge itself. As Bacon says, "All knowl- 
edge and wonder (w^hich is the seed of knowledge) 
is an impression of pleasure in itself. '^ On the other 
hand, he suffers pain if he cannot see some uniformity, 
some underlying connection in the bewildering variety 
of phenomena which are occurring about him. Sanity 
requires that he reduce this "big, buzzing, blooming 
world" to simphcity as revealed in the laws of na- 
ture and of life. This profound impulse to acquire 
an understanding of things is manifested in a strik- 
ing way in the early years. A child will usually for- 
sake its dinner to investigate a new object that ap- 
pears within its environment. This pleasure of know- 
ing, w^e all realize, is intense in child life, and it is 
probably not less important in maturity, only the 
subjects dealt with are more remote from daily ex- 
perience, and the method of treating them is more 
reflective, more quiet, less demonstrative, so that 
we are not apt to appreciate the intellectual interests 
of the adult. It is, however, the delight of knowing, 
and the distress of lack of understanding which is 
the incentive to investigation. As Samuel Johnson 
has said,^ "A desire of knowledge is the natural feel- 
ing of mankind, and every human being whose mind 
is not debauched will be willing to give all that he 
has to get knowledge." Knowledge sets the mind 
free, gives it poise and balance and stabihty in the 
face of an apparently disorganized universe. And 

^ In Boswell's Life of Johnson, Vol. I., p 530, Conversation 
on Saturday, July 30, 1763. 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADJUSTMENT. 117 

while in subtile, hidden ways it all doubtless influences 
in some manner and to some degree the practical 
activities of e very-day life, unconscious as we may 
be of the fact, still, even though it gave nothing of 
this sort, yet it would in any event be of inestimable 
service in human hfe. 



a* 



CHAPTER VII. 

ADJUSTMENT AS AFFECTED BY SOCIAL ORGAN- 
IZATION. 

§ I. The Necessity of "Classes" in the Social 
Organism. 

81. When one says that a course of school train- 
ing must be planned so as best to fit the pupil for the 
hfe he is to live, he awakens in the minds of some of 
his auditors the question, But how can you tell what 
your pupil is going to do? Should every child be 
made ready for adjustment to all phases of the world? 
Will every person have the same adaptations to make, 
and so should all be put through the same educa- 
tional regimen? The right answer to these questions 
is founded upon the doctrine that no man hveth to 
himself alone. Each is a member of a social organ- 
ism; by his actions he either confers benefits or in- 
juries upon it, and receives benefits or injuries in re- 
turn. This relationship of the individual to the social 
whole relieves him from the necessity of doing every- 
thing for himself. His fellows will do some things 
for him — ^^\'ill really make his adjustments for him 
in certain respects. The division of labor in the social 
organism, with the pooling of results, bears a certain 

118 



ADJUSTMENT AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 119 

resemblance ^ to the plan followed in biological organ- 
isms.^ It is apparent; of course, that specialization 
of function in an organism is essential to anything 
like a highly developed form of life. One part of a 
complex whole must learn to do some one thing very 
well, and give the whole the benefit of its skill; and 
it will, in turn, derive benefit from the skill of all the 
other mem^bers. The organism is in this sense a sort 
of clearing-house, where all bring their special goods 
and get what they need in return. 

In human society we see something of the same 
plan carried out.^ In the earlier stages of develop- 
ment where the individual's adaptation to the world 
is not, relatively speaking, very complex, and con- 
sequently where needs are comparatively few, each 
person can look after himself quite completely. The 
mode of settling difficulties between man and man 
does not call for much beyond muscular force, and 
so the individual has no need for learning a vast body 
of intricate laws governing social regulations. There 
IS no stock of knowledge or experience relating to 
the nature and method of treating human ailments 
which makes the services of a specialist in medicine 
necessary. So the individual can get what food he 
needs, can make his own clothing, can build his own 
hut, and so on. 

* The resemblance is rather superficial than vital or profound ; 
the individual bears no such non-individualistic relation to 
the social organism as the eye, for instance, bears to the somatic 
organism. Modern criticism of Spencer's theory has called 
attention to a number of fundamental differences. 

' See pp. Ill and 112 for a statement of this pl&n. 

' See Spencer's discussion of the subject in his Principles of 
Sociology (pp. 467-480), for a general statement of the matter. 



120 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

But as the mind expands and grows keener in the 
course of evolution, and the world is touched at an 
increasingly greater number of points and in a more 
intricate way, with the corresponding complexity 
of reactions and needs, a person cannot do every- 
thing in the manner in which it must be done in order 
to meet all the demands made upon him. The aes- 
thetic needs require great skill in the making of cloth- 
ing, in the painting of pictures, and the Hke. The 
organic needs demand great skill in the manufac- 
ture and preparation of food, the management of 
machinery, and so on. As needs increase and the 
means of gratifying them are augmented, the rela- 
tionship of one individual to another becomes far 
more intricate, and rules of govermnent must become 
correspondingly more complex, so that it gets to be 
impossible for every individual to comprehend these 
and to construct others wisely as they are needed. 
So it resLilts that in advanced racial development each 
individual member cannot, and is not required to, 
adjust himself to the world in all its aspects, in the 
sense that he must appropriate all that the race knows 
in every field and must make additions thereto. 

82. We sometimes hear it said that it is incumbent 
upon the school to establish ideals of social organiza- 
tion and conduct, even though these are not in har- 
mony with present beliefs or practice. It ought not 
to accept the forms of social organization and life 
which it finds in the community, if it thinks it can 
supplant these by something better. But this is 
at best only a half truth. Is it not really the pri- 
mary duty of the school to get wTought into the ac- 
tivities of the young the principles in which the people 



ADJUSTMENT AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 121 

have already come to have faith? The business of 
originating a new order of things must be taken charge 
of, largely at any rate, by other institutions, or by a 
special investigating department of this one, which 
must be to a large extent independent of the instruc- 
tional department. 

The school is in the true sense a servant of society, 
not its master. It is fundamentally a conservator 
of the good that has been discovered and proven to 
be of service to man, and not an advocate of the 
thing that has not been tried, and concerning which 
there is great difference of opinion. Especially is 
this the case in respect of the relations of the various 
''classes'' of people to one another. It is not within 
the province of the school to attempt to disturb the 
system which it is maintained to perpetuate through 
leading the young to adjust themselves to it. Society 
is in a state of extreme tension all the time. As in 
the human body so here, each member is seeking to 
get what he can for himself without due regard al- 
ways for the well-being of other members. But as 
through natural selection there has been elaborated 
a biological organism whose members are quite har- 
moniously related to one another, so in the social 
organism there has been devised a scheme which 
works, although possibly not in an ideal way, yet 
its modification cannot be brought about best after 
the manner of a revolution. The various classes or 
members must be supplied as they are needed in order 
to keep up the life of the organism. If by any means 
it should be possible to keep all people out of any class 
for a generation serious results would surety follow. 
Think of a social condition where the class of law- 



122 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

makers or laborers or physicians or teachers should 
become entirely extinct. It would be much as if in 
the human body the stomach or the teeth or the legs 
were missing. 

This is the conception upon which the school must 
be founded. It is not privileged to destroy any form 
of social organization unless the community in greater 
part desires it. If the school be found in China, its 
proper function must be to get the ideals of Chinese 
and not of American life worked into the thought 
and feeling and action of each new generation; and 
what is true of the Chinese school is true in principle 
of the school in every community. It should be 
said, though, in passing, that in achieving this primary 
task, general education will be certain to bring about a 
rearrangement and better adaptation of things in the 
social organism. 

83. But the question will be asked, Should the 
school in a democracy proceed upon the supposition 
that men are not born free and equal? Should educa- 
tion perpetuate class distinctions which require that 
one man should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow 
in order that another may enjoy himself in luxury? 
It is a commonplace fact, of course, that a democracy 
must be founded upon the principle that all its mem- 
bers should have equal opportunity. There may be 
written upon the statute-books no laws which will 
deprive any individual of a privilege or right to the 
advantage of others. But this does not imply by 
any means that all men are equal in capacity; that 
they can do the same things equally well; that they 
can attain in equal degree the ends for which all ai*e 
striving. 



ADJUSTMENT AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 123 

All men struggle to secure those goods that will 
increase their happiness, but as the supply is limited 
the desire of every one cannot be fully gratified. Now 
give all the right to strive after them and one man 
will obtain more than his fellow^s. He has been en- 
dowed by nature with greater physical strength, it 
may be, or a sharper mind, so that he can discern how 
he must conduct himself in order to obtain what he 
wants. Or he may have greater self-control, or talents 
which enable him to serve men in such a way that 
they wall rew^ard him wdth a larger portion of the 
w^orld's goods than they themselves possess. And 
when one thinks of it he wonders that people do 
not differ more than they do in capacity, for 
when there are so many individuals, the character- 
istics of each being determined by different environ- 
ing influences, and a -long line of forces acting through 
heredity, w^e should expect still greater variation 
in their powers than seems actually to exist. ^\nd 
it will be granted, surely, that in a democracy it is 
just as unfair, just as undemocratic, just as great 
a crime to prevent a man, strong in mind or character 
or body, from accomplishing w'hat nature gave him 
the power to do, as to prevent the weak man from 
exerting his powers to their fullest extent in com- 
petition or co-operation with his fellow^s. 

84. The practice, though (or perhaps one would be 
nearer right in saying the theory), in the schools of 
our own country tends rather tow^ards the suppres- 
sion of the exceptional individual, keeping him down 
to the level of mediocrity. We interpret the doctrine 
of equality to refer to the attainment of the same 
deserts by ail instead of to the granting of equal op 



124 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

portunity. We have not carried the doctrine out 
to its logical conclusions yet, it is true, nor, on the 
other hand, have we adopted the opposite view. We 
stand confused in thought and vacillating in action 
between the interpretation of the doctrine of equality 
given by tradition and that given by ethics and 
science. What is needed to vitalize our education 
is an explicit recognition of the fact that every pupil 
in the schools must be given an opportunity to do 
his best, to achieve the most that he can in any direc- 
tion. If there be one who excels the others by reason 
of native endowment or parental training or any- 
thing else, the school must be organized so that it 
can minister to his needs as fully as to the needs of 
his less fortunate fellows. To fail to do this is a crime 
alike against the individual and against society; for 
social well-being depends more largely upon the con- 
servation of the strong, though they be but few, than 
upon the perpetuation of the weak, though their number 
be unlimited, just as the welfare of the human body 
is advanced more by two keen eyes than it would be 
by a hundred dull ones^ and by two skilful hands than 
by dozens of clumsy tentacles. 

85. Differences in capacity mil manifest them- 
selves mainly in respect of the degree to which in- 
dividuals can adapt themselves to complex environ- 
ments. The strong, well-equipped man, the leader 
in the community, is the one who can adjust him- 
self better than his fellows to the more intricate phases 
of his environments. He can see more keenly the 
principles which rule human nature and can adapt 
himself better thereto, alike as an individual and 
as a citizen. Or he can pe.ietrate further into the 



ADJUSTMENT AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 125 

mysteries of nature and lay open her secrets, and 
turn them to account in promoting the well-being 
of society. The weak man is overwhelmed by the 
complexity of the world; he stands powerless before 
it, and he lives his life on a lower plane of adapta- 
tion. The strong man is, generally speaking, men- 
tally superior; the weak man is, generally speaking, 
superior in a muscular way, or at least he is inferior 
in mental vigor and acumen. The strong man will 
employ his powers in dealing with the complex phases 
of social life; the other will devote himself to the 
simpler needs of society, those which require a lower 
order of mental attainment. And the welfare of 
society requires just such a division of labor on the 
basis of fitness to fill special offices efficiently. 
There is the simple work to be done, and in civilized 
society there is the complex and intricate work to be 
done. In primitive society the simpler and cruder 
activities are of most importance, but in advanced 
society, while both the complex and the simple are 
necessary, the higher activities are of greater conse- 
quence, and the school must spare no pains to train 
up individuals who can perform them. 

86. And it is plain that in a social organism of this 
sort all members ought not to receive just the same 
rewards for their labors. One who touches life in a 
broad way has more needs that must be ministered 
to than the one who bears fewer relations to men and 
things. A highly developed mind implies relatively 
great intellectual needs; it is opened up to phases 
of the world to which a different order of mind is 
closed. So the man of circumscribed, simple life 
has fewer aesthetic needs than the man of broad, 



126 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

complex life; and the principle holds with respect 
to all needs whatsoever. So if the man living in a 
simple way because of the powers nature gave him 
receives the same rewards as the man dealing with 
more complex situations, there must be great in- 
justice done to the latter individual. And a society 
which would institute such a regime, taking human 
nature as it is now constituted, would be speedily 
destroyed, for it would run counter to the first prin- 
ciples of the life of any organism by killing off, or at 
least not encouraging, its most efficient members. 

§ 2. The Adjustment of the Different Classes. 

87. How then would this principle affect the work 
of the school? It finds that there are industrial classes, 
to begin wdth, that live in a relatively simple way; 
the mechanic tending his machine deals with simple 
things compared with the president of the country, 
or a congressman, or a physician, or a teacher. 
And yet the mechanic is more than a tender of 
machines. He is a free citizen; he has a mind that 
seeks to comprehend the world that surrounds him; 
and besides he has social and aesthetic needs that 
are not suppHed by the work he does. And his edu- 
cation ought to provide for these on account alike of 
the welfare of the individual himself and of the com- 
munity in which he lives; for no man liveth to him- 
self alone. If he is not educated on the social side 
he will suffer for it himself, and the society to which 
he is ill-adjusted Avill suffer also. Again, if he does 
not have some insight into the operation of the 
physical forces which play upon him his ignorance 



ADJUSTMENT AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 127 

will not only keep him from becoming adapted to 
his environments, but his superstitions will incite 
corresponding mental attitudes in others and pre- 
vent their adaptation. What I believe, that is to 
say, determines in part what my fellow believes; and 
the way I conduct myself influences my neighbor's 
behavior. 

So every worker has relations and needs beyond 
the work which he does. But still these are, for 
certain classes, quite simple. The man at the forge 
does not need to comprehend the forces in the physical 
world in as thoroughgoing a way as does the engineer, 
or even the one who organized the shop and is respon- 
sible for its continuance. The man behind the counter 
does not need to comprehend human nature so pro- 
foundly as does the teacher or the lawyer or the min- 
ister. Again, those who live the simplest lives do 
not need to master the instruments of social com- 
munication in such a thorough and extensive way 
as do those who have the care of the more complex 
affairs of society. It may be said that every 
citizen ought to interest himself in the most complex 
as well as the simplest phases of social life, but such 
a view is founded upon sentiment and not upon any 
adequate conception of what social organization 
means and requires for its continuance. The states- 
man must have certain of his needs attended to by 
the blacksmith, and he cannot attempt to make him- 
self master of all the details of the latter's w^ork. 
The blacksmith, on the other hand, must have cer- 
tain of his needs attended to by the statesman, and 
it ought not to be expected that he can ever grow to 
understand all the details of the w^ork of the Solon. 



128 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

88. Of course we encounter a great difficulty when 
we attempt to determine what will be adequate for 
the needs of any individual, whether he belong to 
the industrial or any other class. It is evident that 
we cannot settle this exactly in most instances, espe- 
cially in a social organization hke our own w^here class 
Hnes are not rigidly drawn, and where in indi\ddual 
cases they are easily broken down. We have our 
Abraham Lincolns, who are laborers at one period 
in their lives, and presidents at another period. 
But, after all, there are relatively few of these. It is 
possible to predict with considerable accuracy what 
kind of work, whether simple or complex, nine- 
tenths of the pupils in our elementary schools will 
do. The one-tenth is problematical. The condi- 
tions among us which contribute to determine how 
far a pupil will go in his development, and so what 
kind of work he will do, are partly financial, partly 
social in the narrow sense, and partly intellectual 
and temperamental. These conditions make it ut- 
terly impossible to work out an educational system 
wherein every pupil will be absolutely certain of get- 
ting the education which will prepare him best for 
his life-work; but this is precisely what we should 
expect. In a country like ours, where every one is 
struggling to ''get to the top," it cannot be said just 
who will succeed. But we can be certain of one 
thing — a large part of our population must do rela- 
tively simple work, and the elementary school must 
care for their needs. To indicate just how this can 
best be done requires a separate vohime, but it may 
be said here that it cannot be accompUshed most 
successfully by attempting to carry pupils clear 



ADJUSTMENT AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 129 

through Shakespeare, and the spelling-book, and the 
arithmetic, and the grammar, while offering them 
nothing in real, vital history, literature within their 
grasp, nature study, music, and art. The pupil who 
will fill the simple offices in the social organism will 
have use for but very little of the last half of the 
arithmetic as it is presented in the text-bocl:s 
to-day. He could well dispense altogether with 
formal grammar; and if he can spell with absolute 
accuracy one thousand simple, familiar words he 
will never be in need. But he cannot possibly get 
too much of science which interprets the world in 
which he is placed, and history which makes him 
social-minded, in the language of the Committee 
of Seven, and literature which develops ethical im- 
pulses, and music and art which add to the pleasures 
of life as well as stimulate ethical conduct. 

89. Then there are in every community the ruling 
and professional classes that have to deal with more 
complex problems than do the industrial people. 
They sustain all the relations to their fellows and 
to nature that the industrial classes do, and they 
bear other relations besides. The lawyer must go far 
beyond the laborer in his comprehension of the regu- 
lations which bind men together, and which nmst 
be considered in deciding the rights of any one indi- 
vidual as against his neighbor. The physician m.ust 
master all that is known regarding disease and be 
able to apply this in the cases he is called upon to 
treat. So the teacher, the statesman, the minister 
must in the same way each become expert in a spe- 
cial direction, and the school must provide for this. 
And these have not only to make this elaborate 



130 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

preparation for their special callings, but they are 
brought into more complex relations in every way 
with one another than is the mechanic, for instance, 
and so they must receive more thorough training 
outside of their specialties. A teacher bears more 
intricate and subtle relations toward his fellows than 
does the blacksmith; his action is more vital in its 
influence upon their well-being, and it is more im- 
portant that he should be highly developed in ethical 
and civic faithfulness than that the blacksmith should 
be, although, of course, they should both be culti- 
vated as fully as possible in this regard. The minister 
is brought into contact with phases of the social en- 
vironment which the carpenter never encounters, and 
the school must recognize this. It must give the 
minister all that the blacksmith and the carpenter 
get, and much more besides. 

90. So there are certain offices that all must be 
made ready to fill, and certain others that must be 
left to particular indi\dduals or groups of individuals. 
The school will carry all along the same route for a 
way, and then those who are to deal vrith. the sim- 
plest things will drop out into their life-work; 
others will go on until they, in turn, are fitted for the 
niche they are to occupy in the social structure. Of 
course, the further we can cSiYry all along the better; 
the more fully they are prepared for adjustment to 
all phases of the world, the more they will be pros- 
pered themselves, and the greater benefit they will 
confer upon society. The ideal would be to keep all 
under the influence of the school during the entire 
developmental period, when the individual is in a 
plastic condition, and easily moulded after a given 



ADJUSTMENT AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 131 

pattern. As the situation is, though, we are not 
able to attain our ideal. The elementary school 
makes a beginning in the process of adjustment, but 
does not pretend to convey the indi\ddual in any 
particular up to the highest point which the race has 
reached. The high-school carries him still further 
along, gives him greater mastery of what the race 
has achieved, makes him comprehend more fully the 
necessity for social co-operation, and awakens in 
him impulses which lead him to shape his conduct 
more fully in conformity with the needs of social well- 
being.^ The college carries him along from the point 
where the high-school leaves him, and continues to 
perfect his adjustment. 

91. It is sometimes said that the high-school and the 
university ought not to be supported at pubHc ex- 
pense. It is maintained that the elementary school 
gives the pupil all that is essential for the making of 
a good citizen. Higher education is regarded as a 
luxury; reading, ^\Titing, and arithmetic are the sole 
requisites for good citizenship. But it is absurd 
to claim that a boy who stops at the eighth grade can 
serve society as well in its complex forms as can the 
high- school or university-trained boy. A society in 
which there is no bocty of persons more elaborately 
trained than the graduates of our grammar schools — 

* I put aside for the present the question of whether the high- 
school as it exists among us really accomplishes these things in 
the most economical and effective manner. It aims to do this, 
and if it fails the fault lies in defective methods. It is possible 
that a merely formal psychology has resulted in giving us a 
merely formal high-school curriculum and methods of teaching; 
but we shall hear more of this later. 



132 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

none that know physics or chemistry or biology any 
better, none that have learned the lessons of history 
any more thoroughly, none that have any greater 
power of mastering the intricacies of law or medicine 
or education — such a society must ever remain in 
a primitive condition. If our society should adopt 
such an educational regime it would speedily revert 
to a lower point in the scale of civilization. Any 
highly organized society must preserve itself from 
destruction, and must provide for continual progress 
by training up individuals who can become pos- 
sessed of all that has been accomplished in special 
directions, and make additions thereto. Such train- 
ing does not have in view individual pleasure and 
advantage, but social health and advancement. So 
we can see why society must for its own sake main- 
tain the educational system from the kindergarten 
through the university. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE GENERAL EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT ON" 
TEACHING. 

§ I. The Relation of Adjustment to Other Aims. 

92. When we regard Adjustment in this broad way, 
taking account of all those relations to the environ- 
ment which are vital and not to be neglected with- 
out detriment to the individual, we see that as 
the aim of education it includes all that is best in 
the other aims that have been examined. These 
latter have been framed upon a partial view only of 
himaan natare, a view which comprehends but a single, 
and this in some cases not the most important, of man's 
relations to the world. It should need no argument 
here to show that if one becomes master of his en- 
vironment in its social, intellectual, aesthetic and 
physical aspects his mind will be unfolded, in the 
way in which people who believe in Unfoldment as 
the end of educational effort commonly understand 
this term. Again, the individual who becomes ad- 
justed will attain to complete Self-realization, for his 
reactions upon the world in the endeavor to mas- 
ter it wiU awaken all his dormant powers — percep- 
tion, memory, reason, and imagination; love, hope, 
courage, honesty, and all the other attributes of 

133 



134 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

heart and head which should be brought to fruition 
in Self-realization. Those who advocate these aims 
would hardly say that all possible activities of the 
soul should be developed, but only those which are 
good, which are useful, which are virtuous. And 
why good, useful, virtuous? For the simple reason 
that they serve the purpose of correlating one with 
the world; of helping him to get on the better^ and 
so, of course, of helping his brother to get on too.^ 
V But the aim of Adjustment often guides us to the 
selection of different materials and methods of in- 
struction from that of Unfoldment, or of Self-reali- 
zation, in that it leads us to exercise perception, 
memory, and reason, and the emotional equipment 
of the soul with direct reference to the ways in which 
these will be employed in dealing with the situations 
outside of the school-room. But those who are led 
by these other aims would, if they were perfectly 
consistent, take no account of the circumstances 
under which, or the environments with reference to 
which, intellectual and emotional activity would be 
engaged in the later life of the individual. They 
would be satisfied if the attributes of the soul were 
called into being by any form of exercise. One may 
hear those who call themselves disciples of Froebel 
declare that the gifts have for their aim to awaken 
the divine inner life of the child, and not to give him 
knowledge of anything in the world, although this 
latter end may be accomplished incidentally. The 
teacher who makes use of these materials is not think- 
ing about giving the child an understanding of, and 

* Cf. Monroe, The Educational Ideal, p. 2. 



EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT ON TEACHING. 135 

so a mastery over, the world around him; her am- 
bition is to ''develop the selfhood," to "foster the 
image of God in the child," to "fan into flame the 
spark of Divinity in the young soul." And the for- 
mal, artificial gifts will serve this purpose best. For 
others than kindergartners it makes little difference 
in theory what materials are employed. V^erbal 
memorizing and splitting hairs by logic, and philoso- 
phizing on the unknown and unknowable, would engage 
a pupil as profitably as anything he could do.^ But 
adopting Adjustment as his aim one will always put 
the question to any material or method applying for 
favor in the training of the child. Are you well fitted 
to lead the learner into close correspondence with, and 
to give him control over, the world about him? He 
will not ask. Are you capable of unfolding the mind? 
because he knows if it will achieve the first end it 
will accompHsh this last in the best way. 

93. Again, Adjustment includes Discipline, but is 
still not identical with it. One must, of course, be- 
come possessed of a sharp, trusty mind if he is to be 
keen in estimating aright things in the world; and 
the keener his faculties are the more thoroughly will 
he be correlated with his environment. The forces 

^ *' During this long period the dry formalism, and dead 
conning of words which the standard of the church entailed, 
led, inevitably, to the dreary hootings of scholasticism. This 
owlish learning, growing more outrageous as its metaphysics 
became more absurdly deep, soon lost all point of contact with 
humanity. Its husks of syllogism drove all appetite for real 
learning from the mind of the student, and he contented him- 
self, ignorant of better intellectual food, with a smattering of 
Latin, a jargon of philosophy." — Monroe, The Educational 
Ideal, p. 9. 



136 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

which incessantly play upon one are extremely complex 
and involved, and unless he can separate them from 
one another, and see the way in which they operate 
singly and together; unless he can trace connections 
between phenomena that spring out of like causes 
and have similar effects — unless he can do these things 
reasonably well he cannot attain to anything like a 
high degree of perfection in his adaptations. One 
must have a disciplined mind, but disciplined with 
reference to the situations with which' it must deal in 
maturity. Not all that is offered in an educational 
system founded upon Discipline ^ can be put to good 
use in deahng with the world, as we have had an op- 
portunity to see in the effect upon conduct of the old 
Mediaeval Trivium — grammar, rhetoric, and logic; 
and the Quadrivium — arithmetic, geometry, music, 
and astronomy. These curricula failed to produce 
in the real world of men and things that alertness and 
agility and faithfulness of intellect and that vigor 
of character for which they were so highly esteemed 
by the Disciplinarians. Todhunter gives expression^ 
to a view which is endorsed by all psychologists 
in these times, and by others who have observed 
human nature even slightly, when he says that 
application to any subject makes men observant 
in that special field only. The study of botany pre- 
pares one to deal with botanical phenomena, and 
the study of chemistry with chemical phenomena; 
*'but I have never noticed that the devotion to any 
specific branch of natural history or natural philos- 

* See Tate, Philosophy of Education, for an exposition and 
illustration of such a regime. 
2 The Conflict of Studies, p. 23. 



EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT ON TEACHING. 137 

ophy has any potent influence in rendering the student 
especially alive to phenomena unconnected with the 
specific pursuit. I could give some striking examples 
to the contrary." 

Those who place their faith in Discipline as the 
end of all training will put subjects in the curriculum, 
as they have done, that relate very remotely to any 
situations in which the pupil will be placed in maturity, 
but they urge that the value derived from mere for- 
mal study will be of service. Many a teacher keeps 
her pupils year after year on cube root, allegation, 
partial payments; and parsing, to "train their minds," 
to "teach them to reason," to "develop in them 
habits of attention." She causes them to learn all 
the words in the spelling-book, not because they will 
find them of service in after-life, but for the purpose 
of developing their memories.^ But following our 
aim we would cut out every subject and all parts 
of subjects that were assigned a place in the cur- 
riculum simply because they "trained the mind." 
We would indeed train the mind, but we would 
train it with direct reference to the situations wdth 
which it would have to deal outside of school,^ 

94. It will not be necessary to argue the proposi- 
tion that if we can reach the ends of Adjustment in 
our educational work we will obtain in some degree 

* Excellent instances of this theory applied practically are 
seen in Aiken's System of Mind Training and Calkin's Object 
Lessons. Here materials are introduced into the school for the 
sole end of exercising the various mental faculties, and no 
claim is made that the materials themselves are of any account. 

^ The question of formal discipline in education is discussed 
in detail in Chapters XIII. and XIV. 



138 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

what men have had in mind when they have made 
knowledge-getting the summum bonum of Hfe; for 
accurate and abundant knowledge of any situation 
is, of course, essential that one may determine his 
conduct aright with reference to it. And knowledge 
includes not only what one gains from his own exami- 
nation, but also what he gains from the examination 
of others. Our ancestors and our fellow-men have 
discovered certain truths regarding the world, and 
they have recorded and transmitted these for the 
benefit of their associates or their descendants. 
Then when these truths are mastered by the young 
they have the same effect on adjustment as if they 
had been discovered de novo by individual experi- 
ment. The indi\'idual participating in this way in 
the life of the race saves time and energy to an extent 
that we can probably scarcely comprehend, and of course 
it enables him to avoid pain and misery, and even 
summary extinction, by instructing him how to react 
to detrimental stimuli before they have a chance to 
do him harm. Past experience, alike in the life of 
the race and of the individual, is always a guide to 
future adjustment. It gives certainty and security 
to the first adjustments, and so makes possible the 
attainment of a vastly greater number of serviceable 
adaptations in any individual life than could other- 
wise be realized. 

But still not everything that passes for learning 
can be counted as of use to all people, or perhaps to 
any person. It has already been shown that ideas 
are potent in guiding action only w^hen the environ- 
ment is propitious for their operation. If w^hat one 
^"4RiS^S> does not relate to the things to be dealt with. 



EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT ON TEACHING. 139 

how can it instruct him regarding his behavior toward 
them? When the school causes the pupil to learn, 
for the sake of the learning, words that he will never 
employ in expressing his own thought or participat- 
ing in the thought and life of others; when it causes 
him to spend his time and energy over grammatical 
and rhetorical technicalities and arithmetical puzzles 
and anatomical minutias and historical triviahties, 
none of which relate to any of the vital situations 
in which he is placed in life — when the school does 
this what does its instruction avail in human life? 
In fine, if the knowledge one gains bears directly and 
obviously upon any of the problems which an indi- 
vidual meets in trying to master the world it must 
be regarded as advancing adjustment in an effective 
manner, but otherwise it can influence conduct but 
little, and so must be discarded as not worth while. 
Bishop Spalding has emphasized this conception, in 
spirit if not in terminology, in the distinction he 
makes between learning and knowledge;^ the latter 
is organized into conduct, while the former is apt 
to be simply formal, external, lifeless. But surely 
knowledge may be so gained that it will be vital, 
fruitful in its effect upon one's demeanor; this, though, 
is a problem of method which must be examined at 
length in the appropriate place. 

* "Learning is acquaintance with what others have felt, 
thought, and done; knowledge is the result of what we our- 
selves have felt, thought, and done. Hence a man knows 
best what he has taught himself; what personal contact with 
God, with man, and with Nature has made his own. The 
important thing, then, is not so much to know the thoughts 
and loves of others, as to be able ourselves to think truly, and 
to love nobly." — Education and the Higher Life, pp. 30, 31. 



140 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

95. It may be noticed, finally, thB,t if one is rightly 
adjusted to the world he will be able to earn his 
daily bread; which many regard as the great end to 
be aimed at in education. He will be of service in 
some way to his fellows, and they will supply many 
of his needs in return for what he does for them. 
One cannot think of a person being adjusted har- 
moniously to his environments who is idle and un- 
productive; who lives upon the skill and toil of others 
without contributing anything himself to the pros- 
perity of the social body. It is not necessary, of 
course, that each individual should produce material 
goods, but if he does not do this, then he must at 
least add to the things of spiritual value which those 
who provide for his physical needs may enjoy. No 
member of the community is so ill-adjusted as he 
who, while having his comrades supply him with food 
and drink and shelter, is unable or unwilling to return 
them full value received either in perfecting their social 
adaptations, or in revealing to them more clearly the 
mechanism of the universe, or some portion thereof; 
or, in short, who does not increase in one way or an- 
other the sum of things which promote the happiness 
of his associates. 

96. We have now reached the point where we can 
see that the most important distinction between the 
aim of Adjustment and the others which have been 
reviewed is that the former is always dynamic, always 
vital, always comprehensive, while the latter are to a 
greater or less degree static, formal, partial. Adjust- 
ment seeks ever to give the individual mastery over 

/ those phases of the environment that he must under- 
V stand in order to realize most fully the possibilities 



EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT ON TEACHING. 141 

of his being. And it aims to lead society as a whole 
to a mastery of the world in its totality so that in 
reality each member thus becomes adjusted to all 
features of his environments. One who is guided by 
this aim will plan his educational system in view of 
the environments that are to be adjusted to. He 
will get the child, as Aristotle advised long ago, to 
doing in the school what he will be required to do 
outside. What the Committee of Seven has to say ^ 
respecting instruction in history and kindred sub- 
jects may be said of every study pursued in the schools, 
when regarded from the standpoint of Adjustment, — ■ 
''recent psychological pedagogy looks upon the child 
as a reacting organism, and declares he should be ^ 
trained in those reactions which he will need most 
as an adult. The chief object of every experienced 
teacher is to get pupils to think properly after the 
method adopted in his particular Hne of work; not 
an accumulation of information, but the habit of 
correct thinking, is the supreme result of good teaching 
in every branch of instruction. All this simply means 
that the student who is taught to consider political 
subjects in school, who is led to look at matters his- 
torically, has some mental equipment for a compre- 
hension of the political and social problems that will 
confront him in every-day life, and has received prac- 
tical preparation for social adaptation and for force* 
ful participation in civic activities." 

But those who measure their teaching by the 
standards of discipline or of knowledge-getting are 
usually content with no other reaction upon what 

' History in Schools, pp. 17, 18. 



142 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

they present than mere verbal repetition. The con- 
ception of mind upon which these aims are founded 
leads the educator astray when he constructs his 
educational philosophy to harmonize with it. This 
conception makes mental activity an end in itself; 
it does not occur for a purpose — for the acquisition 
of objects of value to the organism. But we are com- 
ing to see that mind develops in the measure that 
it is used in the attainment of ends outside of itself, 
and it functions normally only in response to such an 
incentive/ Morgan presents^ a principle of psychology 
relating to motor activities which appHes equally well 
to mental activities. "We must notice," he says, ''that 
the activities themselves over which control is exer- 
cised do not, as a rule, occupy the focus of conscious- 
ness at the moment of control; it is rather the end 
to be gained, or the result to be avoided, to which 
we attend. When the child stretches forth his hand 
to seize the sweet, it is the sweet itself which is in 
the focus of consciousness." 

Education based on tlie doctrine of formal disci- 
pline puts the pupil in a seat and limits his sphere 
of adaptation to a book, while Adjustment either 
takes him into the world or brings the world, so far 
as possible, in to him, using the book only when it 
reinstates, although in a new setting, some experience 
which the child has already had. It is surely not 
mere fancy nor prejudice to say that the clear recogni- 
tion of this aim, and its embodiment in practice, will 
do for the teacher what evolution has done for the 

* Cf. Luqiieer, Hegel as Educator, p. 110. 
2 Psychology for Teachers, pp. 63-64. Cf. Baldwin, Mental 
Development, Methods and Processes, pp. 189, 294. 



EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT OX TEACHING. 143 

philosopher and thinker — it will open up to him a 
world of real, substantial, and not simply verbal and 
formal values. Much of our education is scholastic, 
academic, bookish; we need a Goethe or a Heine to 
summon in commanding terms schoohiien out into 
the open air to refresh their souls wdth the beauty and 
reahty of things. They have been too much con- 
cerned with symbols, with the forms of truth, which 
have made them mere ^'gerund grinders," to use 
Carlyle's phrase, and it is to be regretted that he 
did not devote a whole Sartor Resartus to their 
foibles and weaknesses. 

97. Men of Fouillee's mode of thinking ^ talk as 
though it were possible to develop courage, obe- 
dience, honesty, purity, promptness in action, and 
similar virtues in ahstracto, as it were. Virtue is a 
kind of thing-in-itself to such people; virtuous deeds 
only obscure the reality, and are not essential to it. 
To develop courage then you need not act coura- 
geously; you need not be brave in the situations in 
which you are placed in daily Hfe. And again, a 
virtue is something above and beyond what is in- 
volved in getting on in the world in the right way. 
One might never perform a courageous act and still 
be courageous; he might be honest without reveal- 
ing it externally, so to speak. There is a kind of 
essence of virtue which is superior to the exigencies 
of every-day life, and this is w^hat the school must 
stimulate. But how? Does not honesty impty an 
environment upon which one can react in an honest 
manner? — an environment of men and women hav- 

* See his Education from a National Standpoint. 



144 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

ing vital relations to the truth-toller — striving to obtain 
goods which all equally desire? No, virtue is but the 
quality of deeds; anactionless thing cannot be virtuous. 
Virtue denotes the conditions of hunian action which 
are essential for the most perfect adaptation — just 
this and nothing more. 

98. Our aim, then, makes the educational process 
in all its details purposeful and definite. Take, 
for instance, such a simple and usually formal thing 
as training the voice to be employed in song. The 
question arises at once, what part is it to play 
in adjustment? and what is essential in order to 
achieve this end? The answer comes immediately, 
*'The voice must be made pleasing to people; it must 
give them pleasure, and they will remem.ber the singer 
and reward him in the measure that he gives." In 
criticising the voice the criterion of success or failure 
will always relate to its effect upon the singer's au- 
dience. There will be an end to reach beyond the 
attainment of certain tone effects, as though their 
mere production was the aim of all effort. It is a 
striking fact that no activity seems to become easy 
and effective except when the actor has some goal to 
reach, and the whole organism, physical and mental, 
co-ordinates harmoniously to accomplish the task. 
Let the pupil once see the function of spelling and 
reading and number and Latin and geometry in cor- 
relating him with the world, and this will be the best 
incentive to him to become possessed of the power 
which they severally give. 

99. But we shall probably never be through with 
hearing that the old system was the best; that it 



EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT ON TEACHING. 145 

made men superior to those of to-day.^ Doubt- 
less the worth of the old-time district school should 
be highly estimated; but yet we must not forget 
that distance always lends enchantment to the view, 
and fortunately perhaps we never weary of recount- 
ing the virtues of the system of things that begat 
us. There is in the breasts of all of us, too, a deep 
reverence for what our ancestors did, which makes 
it impossible to see the achieA^ements and merits of 
the past and the present in right relations. But when 
an unbiased man, trained in historical method, looks 
over the past and compares it with the work of to- 
day, founded in a measure upon more vital principles, 
the times past do not seem so glorified. In those 
days '• there was much study, provided only the stu- 
dent had ability and ambition, and could get enough 
incidental help at home and in school to set him on 
his feet; but there was little teaching. On the whole 
one is rather surprised that the pupils learned as 
much as they did learn. It may be confessed, in 
factj that some of them did exceptionally well. 
Those who had strong intellects and determined wills, 
being thrown upon their own resources, developed 
their reserve strength and became independent stu- 
dents. But it is pathetic, eA^en at this distance of 
time, to recall the boys and girls who never learned 
how to study and never got beyond the merest rudi- 
ments of an education. Some of them never even 
learned to read with much intelligence, and as for 
arithmetic, which was the leading study, they ac- 

* See as a type of much writing in these times, Briggs : At* 
lantic Monthly, Oct., 1900; and Miinsterberg : Atlantic Monthly, 
May, 1900. 



146 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

quired little more than tlie elementary operations and 
were by no means proficient in them. The old dis- 
trict school was of great value, but in studying this 
chapter of educational history the student must not 
allow himself to be misled by the sentiment that has 
grown up around the 'little red school-house.'^' ^ 



§ 2., Adjustment and Interest, 

100. These thoughts suggest a further characteristic 
which distinguishes our aim from others. When dis- 
cipline or culture is made the end of training it is 
of no great moment whether the pupil be interested 
in the materials employed or not; indeed there are 
those in our day who think more will be accomplished 
by coercing a pupil through his studies, in the teeth, 
as it were, of his desires and inclinations. George 
Eliot has given us in ^Ir. Stelling ^ a portrait of such 
a disciplinarian. When Tom Tulliver expressed his 
hatred of Latin Grammar, which had no significance 
whatever for him, his teacher forthwith concluded 
that that was just what he ought to have in the largest 
doses. Teachers who have placed their faith in Dis- 
cipline as the end of educational endeavor have had 
to rely largely upon the rod to get their pupils 
to perform their daity tasks; *' schoolmaster'' has 
in some times and places been synonymous with 
'Hhrasher" or '^flogger." Squecrs is perhaps a little 

» Hinsdale, The Art of Study, pp. 51-53. Colonel Parker is 
reported to have said in speaking of the olden-time school — 
"Yes, it saved some, but think of the number that were lostJ '* 

2 In the Mill on the Floss. 



EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT ON TEACHING. 147 

overdra\\Ti in the severity of his discipline, but if our 
poets and novehsts are to be relied upon his type 
has been reproduced in the great majority of peda- 
gogues/ and this has led many generations of boys 
and girls to creep unwillingly to school, and to cease 
even the creeping whenever a fortunate opportunity 
presented itself to do something more real, more sig- 
nificant, more interesting.^ How many have testi- 



* "Grave is the master's look, his forehead wears 
Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying cares; 
Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule, 
His worst of all whose kingdom is a school. 
Supreme he sits: before the awful frown 
That binds his brow the boldest eye goes down; 
Not more submissive Israel heard and saw 
At Sinai's foot the giver of the law." 

— Holmes, School Boy. 

The spirit of the times is reflected in Byron's injunction to the 

schoolmasters, 

"O ye who teach the ingenious youth of nations, 
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain, 
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions; 

It mends their morals, never mind the pain." 

In "the Greater Dunciad" w^e have a favorite picture of a 
school tyrant, one that is not seldom used in our day with which 
to frighten the young: 

"When lo! a specter rose, whose indexed hand 
Held forth the ^drtue of the dreadful wand ; 
His beavered brow the birchen garland wears, 
Dropping with infants' blood, and mothers' tears. 
O'er every vein a shuddering horror runs, 
Eton and Winton shake through all their sons." 
"^ A modern poet, in one of our popular magazines, thus voices 



148 



EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 



fied regarding their school experiences as Mill does:* 

the protest of the young of our own day against the stiU too 
cold and formal life of the schooL 



of the 



Wow! 

Ten million *'WowsI" 

Or more, 

Rise o'er the land. 

Oh youngsters, 

You're up against it, sure; 

You know the gall 

Of government 

Without the consent 

governed. 
And we tender you 
Our earnest sympathy 
September is a slop, 
That's what it is, 
Or it would loose the key 
To lock the fetters on 

limbs 
And give your brains 
A chance to boom. 
What's brains to you 
When all you want is room 

and time 
To let your bodies have fuU 

sway? 
The grown-up folks may feel 

the need 
Of books and brains — 
Your work and world and 

wisdom 
Call for different stuff. 
If it were so 



School Begins. 

That two times two were hoj)- 

scotch, 
And two into eight went fishing, 
Or d-o-g spelled "I spy," 
Or Geography were a descrip- 
tion 
Of the earth's swimming holes, 
Or Grammar were the study of 

the parts 
Of a boat, 
How much more gladly would 

you seek 
True wisdom 
In' the school-house walls. 
Or if the young idea were 

taught to shoot 
With a shotgun. 
How silently you'd "Wow!" 
When sad September 
Shoved you into school. 
The grown folks ought to go to 

school 
Because they do not like to 

play, 
And you, who do 
Should be let run 
Until you, too, have grown 

beyond 
The playing age 
To find the need 
Of what is taught in school — 



your 



Ain't that so? 
* Autobiography, pp. 136, 137. 
Wayland thus describes the method of the teacher of forty 



EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT ON TEACHING. 1 19 

'' I had always heard it maintained by my father, 
and was myself convinced, that the object of educa- 
tion should be to form the strongest possible associa- 
tions of the salutary class; associations of pleasure 
with all things beneficial to the great whole, and of 
pain with all things hurtful to it. This doctrine ap- 
pears inexpugnable; but it now seemed to me, on 
retrospect, that my teachers had occupied themselves 
but superficially with the means of forming and keep- 
ing up these salutary associations. They seemed to 
have trusted altogether to the old familiar instru- 
ments, praise and blame, reward and punishment. 
Now I did not doubt that by these means, begun 

years ago who thought the school existed to discipline its stu- 
dents: "He used but one motive to obedience — terror. The 
ferule and the cowhide were in constant use. He never taught 
US anything; indeed he seemed to think it below his dignity. 
I do not remember anything approaching explanation while I 
was at the school. A sum was set, and the pupil left to himself 
to find out the method of doing it. If it was wrong, the error 
was marked, and he must try again. If again it was wrong, 
he was imprisoned after school, or he was w^hipped. 

" In other studies the text of the book must be repeated with- 
out a word of explanation. Geography was studied without 
a map, by the use of a perfectly dry compendium, I had no 
idea what was meant by bounding a country, though I daily 
repeated the boundaries at recitation. I studied English 
grammar in the same way. I had a good memory, and could 
repeat the grammar (Lowth's I think) throughout. What it 
was about, I had not the least conception. Once the school- 
master was visiting at my father's, and I was called upon to show 
my proficiency in this branch of learning. I surprised my 
friends by my ability to begin at the commencement and to 
proceed as far as was desired; yet it did not convey to me a 
single idea." — A Memoir of the Life and Labors of Francis and 
H. L. Wayland, Vol. L, pp. 24, 25. 



150 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

early, and applied unremittingly, intense associations 
of pain and pleasure, especially of pain, might be 
created J and might produce desires and aversions 
capable of lasting undiminished to the end of life. 
But there must always be something artificial and 
casual in the associations thus produced. The pains 
and pleasures thus forcibly associated with things, are 
not connected with them by any natural tie." 

101. But life is serious, life is earnest, say some, 
and the best preparation for it is the performance 
of disagreeable tasks throughout childhood. What 
our schools should cultivate is not a lively interest in 
the world of man and nature, but that moral sinew 
which is developed alone by struggling with obsta- 
cles, no matter \^'hat these may be, only so that they 
be difficult to overcome. The end of the struggling 
is not to attain something of value; it is a dead strug- 
gle for the sake simply of struggling. It is batter- 
ing down a stone wall beyond which lies nothing but 
vacancy. Suppose this to be the right method of 
developing human character — coercion to the per- 
formance of uninteresting tasks; how could the race 
ever have been evolved when there was no coercion 
except such as originated within as an impulse to know 
the world and to get into harmony with it? Is it 
too much to say that one will always be interested 
in anything, can always attend to it, when it is seen 
to bear upon his adaptations to situations w^hich in 
some way affect his well-being? This means simply 
that nature has implanted in every person a profound 
desire to learn about the things with which he has 
relationships, and the outward manifestation of this 
is called interest. When it is necessary to apply 



EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT ON TEACHING. 151 

coercion, though, it indicates that the meaning of 
things, if the}^ have any, is not discerned. As Mc- 
Lellan and Dewey have said,^ whenever we have to 
appeal to external stimulus to get one interested in 
a subject it shows that the activity tends constantly 
to cease; the mind inclines to wander or becomes 
listless. This '^ means that there is no intrinsic value, 
no spontaneous movement, no self-developing energy 
in the mind." 

Interest will not be confounded, of course, with 
whim or caprice or humor or freak ; it is not temporary 
or fanciful. '^ The theory of interest does not pro- 
pose to banish drudgery, but only to make drudgery 
tolerable by giving it a meaning. We have seen that 
wdiat is interesting is by no means necessarily pleasant; 
but it is something that impels us to exertion." ^ 
Interest expresses the attitude of the organism to- 
ward the environing world which is believed to offer 
possibilities of pleasure and pain, and acquaintance 
with it is deemed to be highly desirable. Interest 
is the signboard pointing the direction in which edu- 
cation must proceed. When the mind deals with 
things in which it is interested all its activities are 
energized; it growls keen, alert, vigorous. Tasks per- 
formed with interest do not fatigue one as readily as 
those one hates, though they may be far more severe. 
In Shakespeare's words, '' No profit grows where is 
no pleasure ta'en." 

102. Donaldson has pointed out ^ that, regarded from 

* The Psychology of Number, p. 87. 

' Adams : Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education, pp. 
262, 263. 

^ Growth of the Brair>ni chapter on ''Education of the Central 



152 EDUCATION AS AUJUSTM"ENT. 

the neurological standpoint, interest in things is the 
necessary condition for the best development of cere- 
bral areas, and for uniting them into an organic whole. 
He suggests, too, that this interest would have a better 
organizing effect if it was secured in a natural rather 
than in an artificial way by means of gold and the 
cane. The effort involved in always doing what one 
hates results in arrest of cerebral development, if in 
nothing worse. On the psychological side this results 
in a division of attention, and consequently in a hin- 
drance to the unification of the moral and intellectual 
life.^ *'A long course of drudgery in school,'' says 
Adams.* ''will no doubt so break a boy's spirit as to 
make him unfit to be anything in the world but a 
drudge. So long as a boy's spirit remains, a course 
of drudgery leads only to a wild desire to get free from 
it. This educational homoeopathy stands self-con- 
demned. On the other hand, give a boy sufficient 
interest in anything, and we have seen that all the 
attendant drudgery is cheerfully faced." And this 
seems simple enough when we discern the relation 

Nervous System." Carpenter has discussed the general subject 
from the same point of view, and a few of his words may be 
quoted: "Those 'strong-minded' teachers who object to these 
modes of 'making things pleasant,' as an unworthy and un- 
desirable 'weakness,' are ignorant that, in this stage of the 
child-mind, the will — that is, the power of self-control — is weak; 
and that the primary object of education is to encourage and 
strengthen, not to repress, that power." — Principles of Mental 
Physiology, p. 134. 

* See also Dewey, Second Supplement to the Herbartian 
Year-book, 1895, p. 214. 

« Op. cit, pp. 266, 267. See also McMurry, General Method, 
chap. 3, 



EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT ON TEACHING. 153 

between interest and adjustment, and how necessary- 
it was in order to secure adaptation at all that some 
great inciting force should have been instituted as a 
vis a fronte to incite one's activities and to compel 
attention. 



PART III. 

THE METHOD OF ATTAINING ADJUST- 

MENT. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SIMPLEST REACTION- 

SYSTEMS. 

§ I. Instinct. 

103. In order that even so much as a start may be 
made in adjustment, it is essential, of course, that 
an individual should react in some manner to the 
stimuli which play upon him. He must take some 
sort of an attitude toward every situation in which 
he finds himself. But what determines the out- 
come of any given stimulation? Is the route defi- 
nitely marked out, or is it a matter of chance what 
reaction any particular stimulus will produce? Will 
certain situations invariably call forth definite reac- 
tions in all people? Seemingly so. A bright object 
will uniformly arouse the grabbing response in a 
young child, while he will as certainly shrink away 
from strange faces and voices and animals. Touch 
an infant's lips with your finger and he will respond 

154 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 155 

with a sucking movement; and this is typical of 
other reactions occurring in infancy before they 
could be learned by individual experience. The 
explanation of these phenomena is simple enough, 
of course. In the light of modern evolutionary 
thought these reactions are seen to have been ser- 
viceable to the race and so they have been conserved, 
because the creatures that performed them had an 
advantage in the struggle for existence.^ So the child 
makes a start in life with a more or less complex 
machinery for producing reactions already set up 
and in working order, which means simply that there 
are many serviceable activities, and some of the op- 
posite sort, too, which the individual does not have 
to acc^uire. The race has developed them for him. 
And it is not difficult to see the usefulness of instinct 
in human life, for an adjustment once made, whether 
positively in securing ends of advantage, or negatively 
in avoiding harmful experiences, ought to be ever re- 
peated, not only in the life of the discoverer, but in 
the lives of all his descendants.^ 

104. The essential quality of instinct is that it 
gives the child, without having to learn it, the 

^ The literature of evolution deals generously with this sub- 
ject, but one not familiar with it will find the following 
particularly helpful: Groos, op. cit., both volumes; Lloyd 
Morgan, Habit and Instinct, and Animal Behaviour; Romanes, 
Mental Evolution in Animals; Baldwin, Story of the Mind, 
Chap. Ill ; all the volumes of the Pedagogical Seminary. 

^ Of course, when the evironmental conditions change an in- 
stinct may cease to be of value, and it may cv:n be a detriment 
to its possessor, as it not infrequently is in animal life; but 
taken as a whole the plan works well, and nature seems to con- 
sider it best not to modify the instinctive equipment of an 
animal as rapidly as its environment changes often. 



156 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

ability to react to given situations as his ancestors 
have done and have found helpful. Without doubt 
this plan of repetition of a reaction under given 
circumstances is pursued in a general way in all ad- 
justment, even that which the individual must learn 
by his own experience. Nature says, alike to the 
child and to the man, ^'Conduct yourself in a present 
situation as you have behaved in the same or similar 
situations heretofore, and have found the result to 
be to your liking." It seems probable that the 
whole mental equipment of man, as well as of lower 
forms of life, has been fashioned with reference to 
the carrying out of this plan. The detailed mental 
processes involved in adjustment which we are about 
to investigate may be seen in the larger view to all be 
concerned in getting at the gist of any matter in hand, 
and considering what in all of previous experience 
this unknown thing is most like, so that it may be 
understood in the light of wisdom gained on former 
occasions. To gain a comprehension of the untried, 
and so really the unknown things in the world, through 
what has already been made intelligible as a result 
of one's experience — ^this may be the motif ' of all 
intellectual activity. 

§ 2. The First Step in Learning. 

105. Every one knows that in the very beginning 
an infant is capable of performing only a few rela- 
tively simple instinctive activities, such as sucking, 
crying, carrying his hand to his mouth, and the like. 
His response to the world seems to be purely reflex. 
But if we follow him along we find that by the fifth 
week, possibly earlier, he apparently begins to be 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 157 

aware of things about him. The eye seemingly takes 
cogaizance of light, and the ear of sound. ^ This is 
the prehminary stage in getting acquainted with 
the wovld; but there is really little if any adaptation 
as the result of this experience. The week's old child 
simply stares at his mother's face;^ the color scheme 
there presented seems to mean nothing to him. It 
is neither beautiful nor ugly, neither good nor bad, 
neither kindly nor crueh But how can we tell? By 
the child's outward manifestations simply; by the 
way in which he conducts himself toward the object. 
There is no visible response yet to the stimulations, 
although in the case of hearing, for instance, loud 
noises will produce manifestations of fear, and in 
the case of taste, sugar placed in the mouth will in- 

^ As early as the tenth day the child will fixate a candle or 
other bright object, but this is undoubtedly reflexive; the 
cerebral cortex is probably not involved in this act, and there 
can be no consciousness in it. The occipital cortex is not 
ready for functioning before the fourth or fifth week, and the 
auditor^/ cortex ''ripens" later than this. So the infant's re- 
actions upon visual and auditory stimuli before this time must 
be regarded as reflexes pure and simple. 

2 What is said here regarding the way in which the child 
learns the world is based largely upon my own observations; 
but the reader is referred to Preyer's The Mind of the 
Child, two volumes; Miss Shinn's Notes on the Develop- 
ment of a Child; Mrs. Hall's The First Five Hundred Days of 
a Child's Life, Child Study Monthly, Vol. II., pp. 330 et seq., 
394 et seq.; 458 et seq.; 522 et seq.; 586 et seq.; 650 et seq.; 
Mrs. Moore's The Development of a Child, Psychological Re- 
view, Monograph Supplement, No. 3, Oct. 1896. Tracy (The 
Psychology of Childhood) gathers up and classifies the results 
of observations by many people, and while there are some 
differences in details there really are none in respect of the 
principles of learning presented in these pages. 



158 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

cite swallowing movements. But these should doubt- 
less be regarded as reflex responses pure and simple. 
Somewhat later, visual stimulations will often incite 
fear responses, but these too are unquestionably 
made possible by racial experience and not by 
individual learning. At first, then, the eye gives 
nothing of any significance so far as it is possible to 
determine from observation of the child's behavior 
when he is fixating objects. When he sees his 
mother he does not struggle to reach her, as he is cer- 
tain to do on similar occasions later. He does not, 
in short, react in a way which will indicate to us that 
what the eye reports has import of any sort. So, 
too, the mother's voice might as well fall on ears 
stone deaf, for it awakens no adaptive response in 
the infant, except it have a note of terror in it. Once 
more, the tactile sense of a child a week old is no 
guide to him in a true sense respecting his behavior 
toward things — has no other result upon adapta- 
tion than to set off instinctive reactions,^ and most 

^ Professor W. C. Bagley commenting upon this sentence in. 
MS. says: "The touch areas are medullated, and hence (by 
theory) functionally mature shortly before birth. Theoretic- 
ally there is no neurologic reason why the first glimmerings of 
consciousness should not be present at birth — a crude un- 
organized touch-kinsesthetic-somatic consciousness, but con- 
sciousness nevertheless." 

But even if consciousness is involved in tactile experience in 
a day's old child, it would still be true that the content of con- 
sciousness could contain nothing more than pleasure and pain 
elements caused by the immediate experience. There could 
be no comprehension of the object occasioning the experience 
other than that it was now either agreeable or disagreeable, and 
the adaptive reaction would certainly be instinctive. The 
child has made no connections between particular tactile ex* 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 159 

of these, so far as they appear purposeful, seem to re- 
late either immediately or remotely to the convey- 
ance of things to the mouth. 

106. But before the expiration of the sixth month 
in most cases the mother's face exerts a very marked 
influence upon the child's behavior. He now strug- 
gles to be taken by his mxother when he sees her, and 
this is good evidence of learning in the true sense — 
of ascertaining how to conduct one's self toward 
things. The method of accomplishing this is, no 
doubt, familiar to every one. The mother has been 
ministering to the child's needs, and so giving him 
much pleasure; and of course he will wish to have 
all pleasurable experiences frequently repeated. And 
while he has been enjoying these experiences he has 
at the same time been giving visual attention to his 
mother's face, and auditory attention to her voice. 
Day after day for several months these elementary 
impressions — visual, auditory, kinsesthetic, somatic — 
have been gained simultaneously, with the result 
that they get connected together into a rather com- 
plex system, to which have been added motor data 
relating to the process of reaction upon these stimu- 
lations. Now these organic stimulations are so 
agreeable that the child wants them repeated as often 
as possible, and so the information given him through 
vision becomes a means of bringing about a renewal 
of his pleasure. In the past these particular visual 
data, these certain color values belonged to the 
source of the pleasure-giving experiences, and now 
when this color scheme is presented again the source 

periences and particular adaptive motor processes as a result 
of his own experiments. 



160 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

thereof must be within hailing distance, and an ef- 
fort must be made to estabhsh organic connections 
with it/ employing the means which have before 
been successful — great vocal and bodily demonstra- 
tion. 

Of course this reaction must be at least partly in- 
stinctive. We must suppose that the child inherits a 
tendency at any rate to react in certain ways upon 
certain visual stimulations — seeking to get tactile 
and gustatory sensations from brightly colored ob- 
jects, for example. But still experience comes soon 
to play a part in determining reaction; by the fifth 
month the child will conduct himself differently to- 
ward his mother, and other persons that resemble 
her quite closely. Here instinctive tendency is modi- 
fied by experience; and when this first appears the 
child is at the very dawn of learning. He begins to 
comprehend the meaning of what he sees and hears, 
a meaning which enables him to take toward things 
an attitude that will, generally speaking, promote 
his welfare. It is, of course, not difficult to see what 
this learning process consists in — the organization 
into a more or less complex reaction-system of sen- 
y sory and motor elements that have heretofore not 
been connected at all.^ In popular phraseology it 
is the association of the information gained through 
one sense with that gained through others, and the 
association of all with adaptive motor activities. 

^ This point is worked out in some detail in Chapter X. 

' All reaction-systems established before the child has had 
experience with the situations to which they relate are, of course, 
reflex or instinctive; they can in no sense be regarded as the 
products of learning. 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 161 

107. The term '"association." however, as popularly 
used, does not seem to denote with sufficient definite- 
ness and certainty the dynamogenic outcome of the 
coupling up of these elementary factors. It suggests 
to many simply a fastening together of impressions 
that have been gained simultaneously or consecu- 
tively, yielding a perfectly static combination. But 
the objective point of all association of sensory im- 
pressions, in the beginning at any rate, is, speaking 
neurologically, the motor centres; or speaking psy- 
chologically, it is always conduct, behavior. Learn- 
ing thus implies, in this first stage, organization of 
sense impressions the better to guide reaction. As a 
result of such organization data about a situation 
coming in through one avenue, as vision, will often 
give as complete knowledge of the situation for pur- 
poses of deciding how to react upon it as could be 
obtained by getting additional information through 
other avenues, as taste, touch, and the like. This 
point is illustrated finely in the child's learning about 
his food. At first when he looks upon it it is nothing 
but color to him, and so has no significance, for he 
does not see in it any possibilities of ministering to 
his needs. By the seventh or eighth month, though, 
when he sees his food he struggles to get it, and so 
he has learned to tell without actually tasting how 
this thing will taste. Of course this acquisition has 
greatly extended his sphere of adjustment, for he is 
much more likely now to secure enough food, and 
to avoid disagreeable or harmful experiences. His 
tasting power has been projected, in a certain practical 
sense, out into regions remote from gustatory ex- 
ploration. 



162 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

108. It is a fact of first importance for a philosophy 
of learning that by the completion of the first year al- 
most everything with which the child has experience, 
and from which he receives visual or auditory stimuli 
produces some sort of reaction in him. The business 
of organizing impressions, and establishing reaction- 
systems thereupon, has gone forward with marvel- 
lous rapidity, which has been made possible, no 
doubt, by native tendencies, more or less definite, 
to react in characteristic ways in particular situa- 
tions. Of course, the possibilities of learning with 
reference to any object, no matter how simple, are 
probably never fully exhausted; and yet the thing 
may be known in part, at any rate. Observe the 
child getting acquainted with his mother, for instance. 
For a time all that he knows about her is that if she 
will take him in her arms she will give him pleasure. 
But with increase of experience this general knowl- 
edge is broken up into particular knowledges, and 
characteristics of the mother are discerned that were 
overlooked in the early months of learning. As the 
child develops there gradually awakens within him 
attributes which make it possible for him to respond 
to similar qualities in the mother, and his senses 
grow sharper to detect the evidences of these. 
When he is capable of appreciating nothing but the 
effects of immediate organic contact with his mother 
his eye does not need to apprise him of anything 
about her but her presence simply. As he develops, 
though, many different reactions are set up by the 
mother's presence, while only one was observable at 
the start. It is probable that the individual keeps 
on adjusting himself to his mother in new ways until 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 163 

maturity is reached. It is very late before he dis- 
cerns what we call her spiritual qualities, and con- 
ducts himself tow^ard her accordingly. 

109. We have seen, then, that in the very beginning 
of the child's learning the world he gains nothing 
but isolated sense impressions about it; and what- 
ever reactions he makes upon it are purely instinc- 
tive. This is what may not inappropriately be termed ,^ 
the sensational period in the learner's career, em- 
ploying the term current in psychology. Soon the 
child makes a start in arranging these impressions 
in the patterns in which they are presented by the 
objects to which they belong; and this may be styled / 
the perceptional^ period, which, like the sensational 
period, is of course never entirely completed. It is 
legitimate to consider them as periods only because 
certain types of activities are especially prominent 
at these times. It seems proper to remark here that 
in an older day it w^as maintained that the mind from 
the beginning apprehended the whole of anything 
which was acted upon by the senses. The infant 
appreciated the form, size, taste, and all the other 
attributes of an apple the first time he looked at it, 
for instance. But modern psychology holds that 
the percept is built up gradually through the co- 
ordinating of simpler elements. It is the product of 
or2;anization of factors originally independent. It 
is a complex w^hich in any individual case is constantl}/ 

^ Psychologists do not all mean preciselj^ the same thing in 
the use of the terms sensation and 'perception. Cf. the following: 
Wundt, Gnindziige d, physiol. Psychol, ; Stout, Anal3^t. Psych., 
Vol. IT., pp. 30 et seq.; James, Princ. of Psych., Chap. XIX.; 
Titchener, An Outline of Psychology, pp. 148-188; Ward, op. cit 



164 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

changing Tvdth increased experience. Vision con- 
tributes some elements of the complex, while taste, 
touch, the muscular sense, and so on, furnish others. 
It used to be thought that vision could unaided 
reveal to one all the qualities of the world, includ- 
ing spacial relations, but we know better to-day. Ge- 
netic psychology has given us a view of the percept 
in the process of making, and pathology has shown 
the effects upon percepts of some inactive sense. The 
famous Cheseldean case illustrates the principle: 
^'WHien he first saw, he was so far from making any 
judgment about distance, that he thought all ob- 
jects whatever touched his eyes (as he expressed it) 
as what he felt did his skin, and thought no objects 
so agreeable as those which were smooth and regular. 
He knew not the shape of anything nor any one 
thing from another, however different in shape or 
magnitude. Having often forgot wliich was the cat 
and which was the dog, he was ashamed to ask; but 
catching the cat (which he knew by feehng), he was 
observed to look at her steadfastly, and then, set- 
ting her down, said, 'So, puss, I shall know you next 
time.' . . . We thought he soon knew what pic- 
tures represented which were shown to him, but we 
found afterward we were mistaken, for about two 
months after he was couched he discovered at once 
they represented solid bodies, when to that time he 
considered them only as parti-colored planes or sur- 
faces diversified with variety of paint; but even then 
he was no less surprised, expecting the pictures would 
feel like the things they represented, and was 
amazed when he found those parts which by their 
light and shadow appeared now round and uneven 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 165 

felt only flat like the rest, and asked which was the 
l}dng sense, feeling or seeing."^ 

Baldwin has pointed out" that the motor elements 
which the older psychology took httle or no account 
of are also of vast consequence in the building of the 
percept, and constitute an integral part of the com- 
plex whole. If they be lacking or destroyed, there 
can be no process of true perception probably. '' The 
motor contribution to each presented object," he 
says, ^'is just beginning to be recognized in cases of 
disease called by the general term apraxia, i.e., loss 
of the sense of use, function, utihty, of objects. A 
knife is no longer recognized by these patients as a 
knife, because the patient does not know hoiv to use 
it, or what its purpose is. The complex system of 
elements is still there to the eye, all together; the 
knife is a thing that looks, feels, etc., so and so. This 
is accomplished by the simple contiguous association 
of these elements, which has become hardened into 
nervous habit. But the central link by which the 
object is made complete — by which, that is, these dif- 
ferent elements were originally reproduced together 
by being imitated together in a single act — tliis has 
fallen away." 

110. What sort, or perhaps degree, of adjustment 
does this kind of learning give the child? Plainly 
it confers upon him the power to adapt himself to 
individual things in the world. He organizes his 
sensory data and motor reactions with regard to par- 
ticular individuals — particular apples, men, dogs, and 
the hke — with the result that he does not get his apple 

» Preyer, The Development of the Intellect, pp. 287, 288. 
^Mental Development, pp. 311, 312. 



166 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

data and his dog reactions coupled up together, but 
makes them run straight, each in its right groove, 
so that the dog reactions will never be set off by the 
form or color or smell or feeling of an apple. Of 
course, systems whose sensory elements are much 
alike, as the apple and lemon, or cat and dog, or snow 
and cotton, are sometimes mixed, and the child gets 
into trouble — a phenomenon which will receive the 
attention it deserves in another place. But what 
the learning process seeks to accomplish is to get the 
color and taste and touch and muscular sensations 
derived from experiment with any particular thing 
established in certain definite channels of motor dis- 
charge which will bring the child into appropriate 
relations with the thing; and then when some one 
sensory element of this complex system is revived 
it tends to reinstate just the right total process and 
no other; and in this way the individual secures ad- 
justment. 

§ 3. The Learning of Individuals and Classes. 

111. But while the child is learning the individual he is 
simultaneously learning the group to which it belongs. 
Baldwin says that the child reacts to the group first, 
and comes last to the individual, while psychologists 
have generally held that learning proceeds from what 
is particular in any field to what is more general in 
that field. But in both these views too great dis- 
tinction is made between the group and the indi- 
vidual in the first stages of learning; the distinction 
is logical rather than psychological. When the child 
has reacted in a certain way to a particular apple he 
will react in the same way in the future to all apples 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 167 

presenting characteristics or signs like this first one. 
All other apples are but repetitions of the first; or 
they are but the same individual repeated, for all 
practical purposes. Viewed from within, from the 
reaction standpoint, there is no class; there are just 
individuals to be dealt with as they have been dealt 
with previously. In another view there are no in- 
dividuals; it is the same thing every time, and must 
be reacted to in the same way. In still a different 
\dew there are groups of individuals that, while not 
identical, yet closely resemble one another, and they 
must be reacted to in substantially the same way. 
Of course, as the child's experience with apples in- 
creases he gradually breaks up the apple world into 
grand divisions, and even subdivisions, according 
as particular portions have special significance for 
him. For example, Russets are catalogued by them- 
selves, and Baldwins by themselves, and Greenings 
by themselves, because these have to be adjusted to 
in somewhat different ways. An organism that is 
affected unpleasantly by sour apples must learn the 
signs of sourness, and pass by the objects that will 
yield it. And the principle here illustrated is at the 
bottom of all learning to discriminate individuals. 

112. Whether any one member of a group will be 
reacted to in a special way, then — will be learned as 
an individual, that is to say — depends upon whether 
it affects the learner in a particular manner, so that 
he should react to it in a peculiar way. But there 
are many things so very much like other things that 
it is of no importance to single them out from each 
other, since they may all be reacted to in the same 
manner. This is true of the child's method of deal- 



168 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

ing with apples, for instance, during the first years 
of hfe, and it is doubtless the case with many people 
throughout their hves. For practically all persons, 
except the farmer and the merchant, there is little 
need for discriminating in any detailed way the vari- 
eties of apples. The apple qualities common to all 
varieties are alone of much importance to us, and 
we pass over the individual peculiarities. But for the 
apple-dealer there are subdivisions of subdivisions. 
There are not only Baldwins and R-ussets and the 
other large classes, but there are in any one of these 
the good-keepers, the headers, the cider-makers, the 
good-eaters, and so on. But even the farmer does 
not get down to the individual in any absolute sense; 
he simply hmits the extent of his groups. 

113. It is clear enough that the child is much more 
likely to discriminate individuals in respect of some sorts 
of things than of others, for the reason that certain 
things are relatively very complex, and his relations 
to them are varied and intricate, and individual 
characteristics need to be apprehended, because they 
are of vital consequence in adjustment. This is es- 
pecially true of people. The child's father, mother, 
teacher, minister, and playmates^ each influences 
him in peculiar ways. They have particular quali- 
ties which demand particular kinds of conduct on 
his part, and he m^ust not get these individuals con- 
fused or he will suffer for his carelessness, if not posi- 
tively then at least negatively, in failing to obtain 
some privilege or receive some favor. Again, all 
increase in responsiveness in the individual results, 
of course, in increased keenness in discriminating 
thin2;s, which is well illustrated in the changes in the 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 169 

individiiars reactions which come at adolescence. 
Up to the age of fifteen or thereabouts girls are about 
all alike to most boys, but after this there begin to 
be groupings of various sorts, according to the reac- 
tions which have been found to be possible in respect 
of some individual whom the other members of a 
group repeat. These girls are sweet, those are ugly; 
these will aUow liberties, those will resent them; 
these are socially inclined and gay, those are serious 
and sedate and given to their books, and so on. 

On the other hand, broadened experience leads 
to broader grouping of a certain kind. The child 
who finds the kindUness and sympathy which 
characterize his mother's actions repeated in the 
other women of the community, will come to 
react toward all women as though they possessed 
these attributes. The woman-reaction having always 
been determined by these attributes will be so de- 
termined now and in the future. This is the genesis, 
although not the whole history (this will be sketched 
further along) of the general idea or notion or con- 
cept of psychology. Looked at in the making it is 
just the repetition of an adjustment to certain uni- 
formly presented data, the exceptional things in the 
total complex gradually dropping out of account. 
Looked at in its possibilities, in its function in present 
and future adjustment, it is a definitely established 
mode of reacting upon an oft-repeated situation. 

This business of grouping becomes an extremely 
complex one, of course, as may be appreciated when 
we consider that things are classified differently ac- 
cording as they are viewed from different standpoints, 
or as they are to be put to different uses. If the 



170 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

child is dealing with the apple-world on the aesthetic 
side it Tvill be classified in a certain way — this class 
will serve a certain sesthetic purpose, another class 
will serve another aesthetic purpose, while a third 
class may not serve any aesthetic purpose at all. 
Again, if the child is dealing Avith this same apple- 
world on the gustatory side his classifications will 
be very different from w^hat they were previously. 
If his interest is a financial one he will group in still 
other ways. And then with these more special 
groupings there are the general groupings which in- 
clude the particular classes. All men, the learner 
finds, are egoistic; but some strive for money, some 
for learning, some for social prestige, some for pity, 
and so it goes. 

114. So, in summary, in all of the child's learning 
of individuals and classes he gets acquainted with 
individuals first, then conducts himself toward all 
other individuals resembling them as he does toward 
the originals. Then he continually makes smaller 
classes as he becomes more delicately responsive to 
the stimulations coming from objects; and at the 
same time he broadens his classifications because 
of certain fundamental characteristics which he finds 
repeated in an increasingly greater number of in- 
dividuals. His response has reference at first to only 
the basal qualities in things — sourness, sweetness, 
bitterness, hotness, coldness, vividness of color, and 
BO on — and this leads him to group things together 
on wide bases. But as his life grows more complex, 
and his evaluation of things becomes more precise 
in the effort to minister to his increasing needs, it is 
but to be expected that he will come to appreciate 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 171 

possibilities in things that were of no concern to him 
in the earhest 3'ears, and this will lead to continual 
modification of his groupings. 

It has been pointed out that the learning of in- 
dividual things, so that their meaning for the organism 
can be gained from a single datum, in itself of little 
or no consequence, is the first requisite for adjust- 
ment to the world. And it must be evident that 
the power of adaptation to many individuals, or a 
group, through the wisdom gained from acquaintance 
with a single typical object is equally essential for 
adjustment to an environment of any degree of com- 
plexity. Nature says to the learner: '^When you 
have got acquainted with so much of the world as lies 
about you, and have found out how to deal with it, 
then you must try to see in the regions beyond situ- 
ations similar to those you already know. The great 
world is but a repetition in varied forms for the most 
part of the smaller world j^ou have mastered, and 
you will prosper in the measure that you are able to 
discover likenesses between the two so that you may 
conduct yourself appropriately toward things new." 
So the child seeks to get everything strange he comes 
in contact with into one or another of his familiar 
classes of things; all his thinking, however complex 
and subtle, seeks to achieve this end. To illustrate, 
place a pupil in some new situation, say with a 
strange teacher, and see how he will conduct himself. 
The complex of presentations — classroom, class- 
mates, teacher — suggests a familiar type of school- 
room conduct, but the particular signs afforded by 
the new teacher's personality have to be interpreted 
in order to discover just what sort of behavior will be 



172 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

appropriate. Now see the child study the teacher, 
watching her face and movements and attending 
critically to the tones of her voice. And why? He 
is trying to discover what she is in terms of the 
teachers or other human beings he has had experience 
with so that he may act in the light of this experience. 

§ 4. Developmental Changes Respecting the 
Characteristics Apprehended in Objects. 

115. Our conception of the method of adjustment 
leads us to the view that an individual will appre- 
hend those characteristics only of objects that affect 
him to some degree; and all quahties of a subtle 
character, the function of which in determining his 
well-being is not apparent, will escape his attention. 
But the attributes of things which engage one's at- 
tention at a special period may in the process of de- 
velopment disappear from the focus of consciousness, 
since the individual may acquire the power of adapting 
himself to the objects more or less automatically in 
respect of these particular attributes. We should 
expect that the point of view in regarding objects 
would be changed according as the individual is 
brought into new situations in the process of matur- 
ing which involve new relations to the objects. Take, 
for example, his reaction upon the apple at different 
epochs in his development. At first his concern with 
it will have reference to its gustatory properties only, 
possibly its size, too. But in time he may engage 
in the cultivation of apples, and then his welfare de- 
mands that he regard this object in a new hght. His 
attention may be given now principally to the keep- 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 173 

ing qualities of apples; or his commercial experience 
may enforce upon him thoughts of particular species 
of apples which alone find ready market where he 
trades. 

Take another example of the change which devel- 
opment produces in the way one may regard things. 
When a six months' old child sees his mother or hears 
her voice near him he will struggle to get into her 
arms, showing that the thing foremost in his mind 
is what the mother can do to add to his pleasures. He 
is not at all concerned with her appearance as such, or 
the quality of her voice, or the quality of her char- 
acter. But as he develops and observes the mother's 
conduct under varying circumstances characteristic 
modes of action become impressed ever more deeply. 
In every situation in which she is placed she tells the 
w^hole truth, and nothing but the truth, and this char- 
acteristic is so often repeated that it gradually be- 
comes in a way differentiated ^ from the particular 
instances in which it has been observed, and the 
mother is conceived as honest. Whenever the mother 
is mentioned this characteristic may be prominently 
before the mind, because it has been so prominently 
there in all experience with her. This mode of re- 
garding the mother will not appear, however, until 
the individual has got past the point where she can 
serve him contmually by caring for his needs, carry- 
ing him here and there, etc., and until his contact 
with people has impressed upon him the value of 
honesty in human relationships. And the modes of 
conceiving the mother as frank, kindly, affectionate, 

* I discuss the method by which this is accomplished more 
fully in Chap. XI. 



174 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

patient, and the like, are developed according to the 
same principle. 

116. If we follow the child's reaction upon any 
of the things around him we will see that such a 
change in conceiving them takes place in respect 
of all of them as has been indicated in the case of 
the mother. A child of two reacting upon his foot- 
ball shows clearly that the only thing focal in con- 
sciousness is the use to which the thing can be put. 
So with all of his playthings, and his clothing, and 
whatever else is capable of being put to any use. 
And his experiments with new objects have in view 
primarily to determine what he can do with them. 
He conceives of his dog, to illustrate, as an object that 
he can use; he can ride him, or frolic with him, or 
make hini speak or perform other tricks. 

The studies of Binet,^ Barnes,^ Shaw,^ and others 
all indicate that the use to which things can be put^ 
is the attribute which is the most prominent in the 
child's thinking. Binet reached the conclusion from 
the study of his two children, one two and one-half 
and the other four and one-half years old, that the 
qualities of things, in the sense in which this term is 
ordinarily used, appeals but slightly to children. His 
method of ascertaining the interests of the children 

^ Revue Philosophique, December, 1890. 

^ Studies in Education, December, 1896. 

3 Child-study Monthly, Vol. II., pp. 152-157. 

* A distinction is sometimes made between action and use^ 
but the distinction is rather logical than psychological. When 
a boy says ''a horse runs" he has in mind really what can be 
done with the horse, rather than action in obstracto as it were. 
The child's concern with the action of things has reference to 
the way he can employ them. 



THE SIMPLEST REACTIOX-SYSTEMS. 175 

v-vas to ask them to define a number of common ob- 
jects — animals, foods, table utensils, articles of dress, 
articles of furniture, natural objects, and the like — 
and the definitions practically always indicated what 
these things did, or what could be done with them. 
The fact that ^^dth this method the quality of use 
appeared far more prominent than any other shows 
that this attribute was the one most clearly in the 
child's inind, for the character of the questions would 
tend to suggest thoughts of quality and construction 
and classification rather than use. Barnes and 
Shaw pursued somewhat the same method " and 
reached substantially the same results, although 
certain of their so-called '^arge terms," 'Equality,'' 
and the like are really not such at all. The young 
child who says that a ^' clock is a timepiece," or a 
''dog is an animal," or a ''house is a building," is 
not indicating how he really conceives the object; 
he is simply giving a verbal series which he has 
learned in his school definitions. Again, to say that 
a ''bottle is a recipient" is merely verbal, unless the 
pupil actually thought of it as holding liquid when 
the characteristic of use would be the most prominent. 
The only real test of the characteristics of an ob- 
ject wliich engage the child's attention is to observe 
him reacting upon it, and thus to determine what 
it is that attracts liim. To ask him in the school- 
room to tell what a thing is, or even to place the 
name of it on the board and ask him to wTite about 
it, results often in calling forth what books have said 
about the things, and not w^hat is paramount in the 
child's life. To illustrate: In Shaw's investigation 
one child said "water is clear and fleecy"; another, 



176 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

"the snail is very dangerous'*; another, *'dogs are 
found in Newfoundland." Now these are obviously 
classroom definitions; the child w^ould never think of 
such things outside of the schoolroom. So with many 
other statements that were gained: '^A dog is white '' ; 
"a, pencil is as round as the earth"; ''there are two 
kinds of horses, one is the rocking-horse and the 
other is the real horse"; "a horse looks something 
like a cow"; ''horses need wagons"; "the flower does 
not like it when it snows"; "we have mouths of our 
own"; "we have a hat"; — all these statements which 
are collected under different heads by Barnes and 
Shaw cannot represent the true interest of children 
in the objects. The conditions under which they 
are gained militate against any truthful revelation 
of the characteristics which are really focal in the 
child's mind in reaction upon the objects. 

117. Interest in animals in the early years is un- 
questionably in what they do that the child can take 
advantage of in some manner. There is no apprecia- 
tion of, or interest in, structure as such; or at any 
rate it is obscure, indefinite, ill-defined. A child 
of three or four will tell you that the squirrel jumps 
on its legs, and crawls with its toes, and hears our 
voices with its ears, and eats nuts with its teeth, but 
he has given no attention to the mechanism of any 
of these organs, and he is not vitally concerned with 
them. And so it is with all the active life which he 
observes about him, and even with the people he 
observes. A child may be interested in the uses of 
the parts of a building, but he is not eager to know 
how these parts are put together, and how the whole 
is made possible by certain modes of construction. 



THE SIMPLEST REACTION-SYSTEMS. 177 

Questions of structure in any object get attention 
relatively late in the individuaFs development — ■ 
only when the needs of adjustment demand an ex- 
amination of the minutiae of the processes which go 
on about him. This need of more perfect adaptation 
gives rise to the anal}i:ic tendency, which aims to 
imcover hidden processes that their operations may 
be more clearly discerned. But the point is that \ / 

the analytic activity appears relatively late in the 
child as it has appeared late in the race. Primitive 
peoples regard the world in the large; they deal 
with situations as wholes for the most part. They 
cannot analyze phenomena so as to discern the funda- 
mental factors which occasion them. But in later 
times analysis has become the most prominent activity. 
Science is analytic. It breaks up complex wholes to 
discover their elements and how each works in co- 
operation with the others. All evidence indicates that 
the individual's development is a kind of recapitula-^ 
tion of this racial course. 

lis. There are many who believe that the child 
very early manifests this analytic tendency. As 
evidence it is said that young children will take a 
watch or other mechanism apart to discover how it 
is constructed. Children of tender age, too, pull 
flowers to pieces, and even dissect in a crude way 
birds, kittens, and other forms of life. It is of 
course true that a very young child will pull a com- 
plex thing to pieces. But now the year-old child 
is not analyzing the flower or the watch when he re- 
duc':s it to its elements. He is taking no account 
of Low one part is related to the other parts and to 
the whole. Perhaps this should be regarded as the 



178 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

initial form of the analytic activity; it gives a reali- 
zation that complex things are composed of parts. 
But it is not true analysis; this comes only after the 
individual has had much experience with things as 
wholes in any field. Lukens/ Barnes,^ Sully ,^ Clark,^ 
and others tell us that the individual gives httle 
attention to the details of things he draws until 
toward the beginning of adolescence. Up to that 
period he uses his drawings largel}^ in a symbohc 
way; he is little concerned ^dth technique. Again 
in the study of language it is generally behoved tha: 
analytic work in formal grammar ought not to be 
entered upon before the high-school period. Hodge/ 
Jackman, and many others observing children's 
interest in nature agree that dissection should not 
be begun until the high-school period is reached, 
and some think that even here the pupil has no real 
interest in anatomy as such. 

iPed. Sem., Vol. IV., pp. 79-110. 
^Ihid., Vol II., pp. 455-463. 
3 In his Studies of Childhood, Chap. X 
* Studies in Education (Barnes), p. 2c3. 
^ See his Nature Study and Life. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CERTAIN TYPICAL 

" SENSES." 

§ I. A Preliminary View. 

119. It is a familiar enough fact, however it may 
be stated by different persons, that all organisms 
are constructed on a plan whereby a stimulus re- 
ceived through one avenue will lead to effort to se- 
cure or avoid stimulations through other avenues 
which formerly were gained in connection with the 
stimulus now acting. This serves to make the in- 
dividual dynamic, aggressive; not quiescent or indif- 
ferent. It is needless to argue the proposition that 
an organism constructed on a plan whereby it would 
be satisfied mth the mere reinstatement, or echo, of 
experience could not survive. The condition of sur- 
vival, speaking generally, is the repetition of experi- 
ence, and this must be secured through some ele- 
ment of an experience reminding the organism of 
the total effect gained from this source on previous 
occasions. Or, speaking more precisely, a simple 
stimulus must set up in the organs originally in- 
volved in the complex experience of which this 
stimulus is an element, an excitement which acts 
as an incentive to the organism to have the original 

179 



180 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

experience repeated. Current theory gives us the 
view that an organ active in a certain way '' craves" 
a repetition of the action under circumstances sim- 
ilar to those accompanying the initial experience. 
And this seems to be the case in respect not only of 
one's post-natal experience, but it is true as well 
of his inheritances. Groos has lately made clear a 
point which has been expressed in one form or an- 
other many times — that the child almost at birth 
seeks sensory stimulations for the pleasure exercise 
of any sense gives. In ontogenesis organs crave a 
repetition of stimulations that have been often ex- 
perienced in phylogenesis, and the organism be- 
comes aggressive in striving to get these stimulations 
through experiment with the environment. 

§ 2. The Sense of Location. 

120. This principle is mentioned here, since in 
its fundamental features at any rate it is at the bot- 
tom of one of the most interesting and important 
phenomena of adjustment — the '' questioning activ- 
ity" in the young, or the old, for that matter. One 
of the earliest forms of the child's questions is con- 
cerned with the whereabouts of objects in which he 
is interested, but which he cannot see nor lay his 
hands upon. The child of two years asks his 
mother ''Where is my hat?" and this is typical of 
questions he is putting constantly. The occasion 
for this question may be his desire to go out, or he 
may see his brother with his hat on, or the hat may 
be mentioned in the course of conversation, or he 
may observe going-out preparations taking place 



CERTAIN TYPICAL "SENSES." 181 

on the part of persons in the room; or in some 
way the idea of the hat appears in consciousness, 
and then the child proceeds either to get the thing 
or to run to his mother or some one else and ask 
where it is. If he can put his hand on it he does not 
ask the question; it is only when his searching does 
not reveal it that he comes to some one whom he 
has discovered is competent and disposed to help 
him out. 

Now we must go back a little to trace the steps 
by which this question is made possible. To begin 
with, the sense of searching for a lost object appears 
as early as the seventh month probably; for chil- 
dren of this age when food or a plaything gets out 
of sight will look about as if hunting for it. The 
child of two months will not search for things. If 
his ball or cookie gets out of the range of vision or 
touch it exercises no further influence upon him; 
it is annihilated so far as he is concerned. He has 
no sense of its being somewhere. It is true he may 
cry, but this is not for the conscious purpose of ob- 
taining it again; it is an expression of regret, or perhaps 
anger, that his pleasure has been so suddenly terminated. 
Of course his demonstration will be serviceable to him, 
and this may be why crying in childhood has sur- 
vived; but the child is at first ignorant of the whole 
matter. '^Out of sight, out of mind," is true of all 
experiences of the infant, if sight is understood to 
include the other senses. 

But in the course of time one may see him con- 
ducting himself very differently when an object he 
desires gets away from him. He does not content 
himself with sucking his fist or crying, but he makes 



182 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

an effort to secure the object again, either by striv< 
ing to bring himself into correspondence with it, or 
by imploring assistance from others. This phe- 
nomenon must be due to the fact that the memory of 
the object persists in consciousness, if not focally 
then at least marginally, and the organism seeks to 
have sensations derived from actual contact with 
it repeated, believing that it is still existent some- 
where. Now the development of this belief has come 
about through the child's experiences, repeated hun- 
dreds of times every day after the fifth or sixth 
month, wherein an object having escaped from sight, 
the next moment it appeared in view again; or when 
it was lost to vision it would be found directly by 
tactile exploration. 

At first, of course, the idea of lost and found, of 
the continuity or the permanency of things, does not 
occur to the child. But as his experiences increase 
the consciousness is gradually developed that when 
a thing disappears it is not gone forever. When 
then at the seventh or eighth month a pleasure-giv- 
ing object gets out of sight the organism seeks to es- 
tablish connections with it again. This results in 
motor activity ; the child moves about, and accidentally 
the ball is brought within his range either of vision or of 
touch. And the point is that when this process has 
been gone througji wdth a vast number of times there 
begins to be established a sense that by moving around 
the desired object can be obtained, and this is the 
typical form of the searching sense in its incipiency. 
M first the searching is wholly illogical; the child 
simply looks about here, there, and everywhere. He 
does not consider circumstances and look in some 



CERTAIN TYPICAL "SENSES." 183 

definite place or direction for the thing he wants. But 
with the multiphcation of experiences he comes in 
time to get things associated together, so that his 
searching becomes more rational. He slowly dis- 
cerns, for instance, that when the ball rolls out of his 
right hand he should look on the right side for it Of 
course he must have a great many hit-and-miss experi- 
ences before the hits begin to appear more frequently 
than the errors, but in due season a particular feeling 
of how to turn the head and body and where to extend 
the hand gets coupled with the particular motor and 
equilibrium data given by the ball being released in a 
certain position, and with a certain direction and a 
certain force; and thus the logic of search gets started. 
Other factors than those indicated, it is hardly neces- 
sary to add, co-operate in developing this complex 
sense of just where things go wnen they get out of 
reach. The extension of the range of vision and the 
development of motor control, so that the senses can 
be brought into contact with wider reaches of the 
environment, are important factors in enabling the 
child to keep things in view when they get away from 
his hand, and so to give him the feeling not only that 
they are somewhere, but that they are in a special place. 
But the problem of chief interest here is how the 
child gets to believe in the continued existence of 
objects after they have become separated from him, 
and why he seeks to get them, and not how he comes to 
know precisely where they exist. And the answer is 
that the sense of continued existence is developed 
through the initial experiences of the child, wherein 
he slowly learns that out of siffht is not out of the world, 
because he can receive aL the impressions from objects 



184 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

once escaped from him, but later restored to him, that 
he received originally. At the start the consciousness 
of permanency is doubtless confined to particular 
occasions and things when they have got out of reach, 
but with experience this consciousness becomes more 
and more generalized into a sense of the permanency 
of most of the things in the universe. 

It seems highly probable that the native consti- 
tution of the mind assists in the development of this 
sense. It is inconceivable that the child could develop 
this activity ah initio, as he probably does certain of 
his activities in reading, for instance. The individual 
must receive from the race the basis for the develop- 
ment of this sense, but the racial contribution is not 
definite; it needs experience of a certain kind to make 
it effective. It is true that the child at birth mani- 
fests this sense in a way, for he will cry to be fed or 
cared for, showing an instinctive confidence in the exist- 
ence of food and of care-takers somewhere. But aside 
from a few such instances there is no indication that 
he has at birth even instinctive faith in the permanency 
of those phases of the world with which he is not in 
direct physical contact. 

121. This desire to have a complex situation repre- 
sented as it has been experienced on former occasions, 
when some element thereof is revived, which is funda- 
mental in all adjustment, is illustrated strikingly in 
children's early endeavors to adjust themselves to 
pictures. When one shows a child of a year and a 
half or thereabouts a picture in which appears but a part 
of a familiar object, as of a man^s body, for example, 
he will be quite apt to ask where the other part is, and 
will be much distressed until the entire man is percepti- 



CERTAIN TYPICAL "SENSES." 185 

ble, or until in some way one makes him feel that the 
whole man is there, but a part is hidden from view. In- 
stinctively a parent helps his child in such a situation 
by trying to make the missing part of the object real 
and vivid, so as to satisf}^ the child's desire for com- 
pleteness, instead of attempting to explain that the 
picture is but a shadow of reality, since then the situa- 
tion could not be made complete, as it always is in the 
child's concrete experience. A child of this age will 
look behind pictures and mirrors to discover the parts of 
things that do not appear on the surface, so to speak. 
For instance, if he glances at a picture showing a horse's 
head facing him he will not fail to look behind the 
picture for the rest of the animal ; and this is but typical 
of many examples of this sort reported by Preyer, 
Sully, and other observers. 

But as the child develops he learns by repeated ex- 
periment that when a horse's head is seen under these 
conditions, and presenting certain peculiar appearances, 
nothing but the head can be discovered, and so he 
corrects his original tendency to look for body, legs, 
and tail when he sees a head. It is, of course, a simple 
enough fact, but of much significance in this connection, 
that if an artist represents a thing very faithfully, as 
we say, the child of some maturity even cannot dis- 
tinguish it from the original, and he will go on trying 
to complete in flesh-and-blood actuality the situation 
which is but suggested, and he will react to it as though 
it were real. The learning how to react to a picture 
is not essentially different in the final analysis from the 
learning of the real thing originally. But the point is 
that the reality being learned first, it is difficult for 
the child to get along with a partial representation of 



186 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

it later. It is a struggle for him to modify his former 
way of conceiving and reacting to things that presented 
the data, some of which are gained from the picture, 
denoting a peculiar condition of the object. 

122. To return to the child's gaining a sense of the 
whereabouts of things, there is a form of this activity 
which is much like that already discussed, but it may 
receive a word in passing. A child watching the sun 
go down behind the lake asks '' Where has it gone?" 
Previous to this, when his football got out of sight but 
a short way he inquired where it had gone, and soon 
he discovered its whereabouts. And so with his mar- 
bles, with his parents when they escaped from him, 
and so on. In all his daily experiences he has had 
evidence that when objects disappear they still exist 
some place. In his nursery life, when his playthings 
went rolling off he followed them innumerable times, 
and now when anything disappears he is impelled to 
follow it, at least ideally, that he may image where it is. 
The thing going drags him mentally after it, and if he 
cannot complete the picture for himself, then he prays 
for help by his question. 

It is of course important that this tendency should 
have been conserved in the race and inherited by the 
child, for his well-being will depend in no small measure 
upon his disposition to ascertain the whereabouts of 
everything he has seen or heard or used in some way 
and that has gone out of his range of sense contact. 
And here as in all his other activities it is his aim at 
first to bring himself into immediate contact again with 
things that have disappeared. But as development 
proceeds the desire for repetition of sense experiences 
with familiar things grows less and less, so that the 



CERTAIN TYPICAL ''SENSES." 187 

individual is satisfied if he has the ideal elements of 
his experiences reinstated. Again, we should expect 
that as the child got some satisfactory view of where 
the sun went when it passed out of sight he would 
cease to ask the question, and the sunset would occasion 
him no particular anxiety, so far as the destination of 
the orb of day was concerned. The situation which 
was at first completed with difficulty is now completed 
in a more or less subconscious and automatic way, 
and the thing which all observers have noticed happens 
— the child's curiosity about the going down of the sun 
gradually disappears. And to say that curiosity wdth 
reference to a certain thing disappears means that 
there is no longer difficulty in completing all the situa- 
tions in which this thing enters, — situations respecting 
its origin, its destiny, its whereabouts, its composition, 
its attributes, etc. Curiosity is just this effort of the 
organism to get situations completed. The child could 
not be curious about the destination of the sun at sun- 
set if he had not got the sense of its going somewhere 
from his experience with the things around him, by 
which he learned to always look for the whereabouts of 
things that had disappeared. 

There is doubtless born with the child a general 
tendency to look into everything, to explore the un- 
known, but it is questionable if this would amount to 
much if the experiences of the nursery^ had not shown 
him that it pays to keep on the qui vive. A child of six 
is not curious with respect to a complex situation if he 
has had no experience with it, or with something akin 
to it. Catch him at any point in his progress toward 
maturity, and it will be found that he is curious about 
a thing only when he has already had experience with 



188 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

something like it, but he cannot now complete his ad- 
justment to it without an effort. It is sometimes said 
that people are always curious about the unknown, 
but as usually interpreted this proposition is not true. 
Much of what the physicist or chemist or engineer is 
most curious about I am utterly indifferent to. These 
things incite in me no disposition to complete certain 
situations, for the reason that in my experiences I 
have not often been placed in situations wherein these 
things were elements. Esquimaux are not curious 
about the arcliitecture of St. Peter's at Rome, nor 
is a plough-boy curious about the way Beethoven 
wrote his symphonies ; and the principle is clear in both 
cases. 

123. The feeling after the whereness of things to com- 
plete present experience is still further indicated in 
the question, ^' Where have you been?" much like the 
others given above. The child of two or so will say 
to his mother, ''Where has mamma been?" He will 
ask of his dog as he runs into the room, "Where have 
you come from?" When a plaything is brought him he 
will inquire where it was got. Children often ask 
when they see the sun, moon, stars, or clouds, where 
they come from ; ''Where did the baby come from?" 
and so on. Now these are not questions of origin in 
the sense in which some observers use the term; they 
do not relate to the beginnings, the genesis of things. 
They relate to the place from which the things pro- 
ceed, to where they were before the present moment. 
The state of consciousness established by the present 
stimulus is one of a vague, indefinite sense of a some- 
place, and there is an effort to make this vague state 
clear and precise. 



CERTAIN TYPICAL ''SENSES." 1S9 

Of course this question is developed in the same 
way that those of which we have already spoken are 
developed. The infant has continually impressed upon 
him the idea that people and things come from places. 
He is hiding in some corner and rushes up to his mother, 
who exclaims: ''Where did baby come from?'' or 
''Where has baby been?" and this impresses upon him 
the notion of his having been somewhere. Innumer- 
able experiences of this sort develop the sense of a 
someplace from whence come absent things, and which 
peace of mind requires to be made as definite as pos- 
sible. The need of this is perhaps not as great as 
to know where things are going, and as a matter of 
fact the question "Where have you been?" is heard 
in the child's life less frequently than the question 
"Where are you going?" and "Where has it gone?". 
The interest in this form of question never wholly 
disappears, though it becomes less and less pronounced 
as experience gets things and their customary wander- 
ings definitely connected together. A child of five 
Yn.\\ not ask her father when he comes home at noon 
from the university or his office where he has been. 
This is one of the situations that is so easily filled out 
ideally that there is no occasion for the question. 
On the other hand, simple rural folk ^vill always ask 
a friend or even a stranger whom they chance to meet 
where he has been. Their curiosity is never quenched. 
The urbanite, though., will not be quite so curious, 
even if he does not knov/ where his neighbors have 
been or have ^'one, and one reason for this is that 
his mind is filled with, other interests, and there is no 
chance for many of the stimuli v^^hich play upon him 
to become completed by reinstating their associates. 



190 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

The countryman's consciousness is always in proper 
condition for such a stimulus as the sight of a neigh- 
bor travelling to produce restlessness until there is 
completed ideally the complex situation of which 
the traveller in his present position is a factor. 

§ 3. The Sense of Cause and Effect. 

124. We have now to glance at the origin and de- 
velopment of another variety of adjusting process 
which more than any other has attracted the atten- 
tion of philosophers, psychologists, and students 
of childhood. It is mentioned by all observers that 
by the time children have reached the age of three 
or thereabouts they are continually asking questions 
regarding the causes of the phenomena that occur 
about them — '^What makes the sun shine?'' ''What 
makes it rain?" ''What makes the moon get smaller?" 
"Who made the sky, thunder, grass, — everything?" 
and "How did he make them, and why?" These 
are typical of questions the child is putting contin- 
ually. In these questions he shows he is feeling after 
some agency which lies back of the phenomena he 
observes. And as we watch him in his development 
we see how this feeling is awakened. At the very 
beginning there is no evidence that he has the slight- 
est conception of a relation of cause and effect; his 
is a life of happenings without antecedents in any 
conscious sense, though in certain of his instinctive 
activities something like this relationship seems to 
be implied. In his crying, for example, he expects 
(if one may so speak) that the cry will move the 
mother to come and minister to his needs, but there 



CERTAIN TYPICAL ''SENSES." 191 

is not much of even this sort of thing in the life of a 
two-months'-old child. But by the fifth or sixth 
month, probably, he is being constantly impressed 
with an agency back of all that occurs. He sees that 
he is incessantly producing effects himself; and in 
his small world he is discovering that nothing ever 
happens except on account of the agency of some 
person or other living thing. At first cause and 
effect are in consciousness at practically the same 
instant. The spacial and temporal interval between 
the cause acting and the effect produced are very 
slight, and the two get connected together in the 
child's thought. As his sphere of activity widens 
the cause and the effect are not always in such im- 
mediate juxtaposition, but yet they remain close 
enough to be associated together because of having 
been experienced close together. In the beginning 
the child usually saw the mother shake the rattle, 
and do all sorts of things. But by the close of the 
first year he must turn around perhaps to see who 
rolled the ball to him — this as a type of familiar oc- 
currence upon which the sense of agency seems to 
be founded. Then later he must crawl to the door 
to see who has performed some act; and gradually 
as experiences of this sort multiply the sense of some- 
thing acting behind all occurrences gets established, 
and the child seeks to complete any situation when 
an event occurs by searching after the thing that 
occasioned it. At first he wants to actually see the 
cause, since it must be a person or dog or cat, but 
in time he -will be satisfied if he can get simply the 
ideal situation reinstated — if he can see in his mind's 
eye what was the occasion of any happening. 



192 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

It may be remarked in passing that the develop- 
ment of this sense of agency is greatly aided by the 
tendency of the child's elders to impress upon him 
b}^ their questions the idea of every occurrence hav- 
ing been caused by some one or something. ''Who 
did this?" the mother asks many times a day, or 
''Did you do it?" And this results in leading the 
child to think of agency at first as always human; 
who caused it is the question. "Who broke the 
moon?" children of two ask when, having seen the 
full round face of the lunar body one night, they 
see it some time later in its decline. It is a familiar 
enough fact, of course, that the very young always 
put human forces behind natural phenomena, though 
they come earher than many believe, I think, to the 
conception of a some what as the source of events. 
Between his second and third birthdays, looking at 
the clouds floating across the sky, S. asks: "What 
makes them go?" and this is typical of questions 
he is asking constantly. 

And I can explain the phenomenon to him without 
bringing in human agency, for by this time he has 
connected the waving of the trees, the motion of the 
leaves and paper and his own dress, etc., with the 
blowing of the wind, and this may now be used as a 
cause of events. Of course the wind itself is doubt- 
less at first nothing but a kind of man, and the child 
shows this in his fear that the wind may catch him. 
But it gets speedily to be a very pecuhar man, that 
does only pecuhar things, and that cannot be seen 
but only heard as it whistles through the limbs and 
cracks in the house. Then with increased experience 
the chasm between himian and wind agency is made 



CERTAIN TYPICAL "SENSES." 193 

ever broader, and they are ultimately wholly dis- 
sociated. 

125. Of a kind with the seeking for a cause is the 
seeking for a motive or end or teleology of phenomena; 
or in popular phraseology, searching for a reason 
for happenings. The child of three or less will begin 
asking, '^Why does God make it rain?" ''Why does 
it thunder?" ''Why do flowers come out in spring?" 
and so on ad libitum. This question, introduced by 
why, may denote two different attitudes of mind. In 
one case the individual may really be seeking for the 
cause of the thing engaging his attention, as when he 
asks, "Why is it so cold?" and "Why does winter 
come?" when he is seeking the agencies which produce 
winter. But when he asks such questions as "Why 
does the wind blow so hard?" "Why does lightning 
go in streaks?" "Why do cats catch mice?" etc., etc., 
he is praying for light as to the end for which the action 
in question is performed. He is striving to have 
completed a situation one element of which is an agent 
acting, but the end to be attained is not apparent. 
He is impelled to seek this end, since all of his experi- 
ence has enforced upon him the idea that there is 
always an end to be attained, and he reaches the point 
where he cannot regard a phenomenon apart either 
from its cause or from its teleology, and in either case 
the organism will not be satisfied until the general, 
indefinite situation has become more definite and 
assured. When this is reached the questioning atti- 
tude ceases, of course. 



194 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 



§ 4. The Sense of Means. 

126. One in immediate contact with young children 
cannot fail to see that one of the most prominent 
forms of the questioning activity has to do with dis- 
covering the method, the how of doing things. ''How 
do trees grow?" ''How did God get up into the sky?'^ 
"How does rain come through the clouds?" are typ- 
ical questions a three-year-old is asking constantly. 
If the foregoing account of the development of ques- 
tioning activities is a correct one then it will be easy 
enough to explain the child's questioning after the 
how of events. The notion of the method of doing 
things is constantly impressed upon him from the 
outset. In his nursery the problem of how to perform 
actions, how to achieve ends, is an ever-present one, 
and he is incessantly seeking aid from those about him. 
He is shown how to overcome some of his difficulties, 
while others cannot be mastered. For instance, he 
cannot be helped to fly, he cannot get the moon which 
he desires, and so on. In all these experiences the 
attention is turned prominently upon the way of 
accomplishing a deed; and this idea is further im- 
pressed by the mother who keeps asking the child 
how he did this or that or the other thing. 

So it comes about, in the way which has already 
been indicated, that when the child sees a certain 
achievement there is set up a desire to know how it 
was achieved. Like the other questions this does not 
appear until he has had much experience himself in 
attempting to do things, and the idea of a way has 
forced itself upon his attention in certain situations. 



CERTAIN TYPICAL ''SENSES." 195 

The child of a year, it is safe to say, never manifests 
any concern about how a squirrel got up a tree; it is 
doubtful if he is at all conscious of the method of 
doing this thing when he sees a squirrel in the branches 
above him. His attention is centred in the object 
as such, and there is no effort to complete a situation 
by seeing how he got where he is. The how of doing this 
sort of thing has not been prominent enough in the 
experience of the yearling to come fonv^ard on this 
occasion. A little later when the child is struggling 
constantly to do things of this character the how of it 
wiW. come up forcefully to him, and become an element 
ever afterward in his reacting upon this situation. 
Of course, when the method is easily discerned there 
will be no tension, and so no question. 

127. It is hardly necessary perhaps to add that the 
eagerness to discover causes and effects and modes of 
action lasts as long as life does, and it is possible that 
it increases in intensity with the passage of years. It 
is not so demonstrative, however, in maturity, at least 
in the child's way, though all the research and 
much of the discussion of adult life have in view 
the discovery of the rationale of things. The intelli- 
gent man's mind is in a constant state of tension with 
respect to most phases of the universe; he is never at 
rest; he is incessantly asking. From whence? Whither? 
Why? How? These are just the questions the child 
is asking, too, but they relate to the simple happenings, 
as the adult thinks, in his immediate environment, and 
he applies to his elders to help him out. The man, 
though, is concerned with matters more intricate and 
subtle; and he must work them out mainly in his own 
mind, which leads some to think that he is not very 



196 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

eager and active in searching for causes and effects. 
But it is probable that no mind can behold phenomena 
without attempting to construct ideally, though not 
always in a conscious way, the series of events out of 
which they spring. It is not optional to seek for 
causes; it is mandatory. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE RETENTION AND ABRIDGMENT OF 
EXPERIENCE. 

§ I. Methods of Keeping a Record of Experience. 

128. In what has been said thus far regarding the 
processes of learning it has been impKed, of course, 
that there must be some method of keeping a record 
of past events and using it as a guide for the future. 
The first condition of learning is the retention and 
reproduction of experiences (including impressions 
and the outcome of reactions upon them), so that 
they can be used in present situations. Sidis and 
others have cited instances of persons who on account 
of some accident forgot all they had ever learned, 
and they became as helpless as infants before the 
world they once were able to adapt themselves to. 
One cannot conceive of a stream of water ever learn- 
ing anything, since all impressions made by objects, 
as the wind which lashes it or the boat which glides 
upon it, are erased as soon as they are made, and 
every new impression is received as a total stranger. 

129. There are, as we should expect, different 
methods of keeping the records of experience, neces- 
sitated by the needs of efficiency and economy in 
adjustment to a complex environment. There is, 
in the first place, the method of associating together 
impressions — visual, gustatory, auditory, and others — ■ 

197 



198 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

derived from any single object, as an apple or a 
tree, and organizing these with motor activities re- 
quired for proper reaction upon them.^ This is the 
//method of simultaneous association, using the term 
in the sense in which it is employed by Wundt,^ Titch- 
ener,^ et al} These several impressions are usually 

^ Baldwin (Mental Development, Methods and Processes, 
p. 310) emphasizes the importance of motor reaction in binding 
together sensory elements in experience. Different impres- 
sions are made to hold fast to one another in memory because 
they are ''used together" in action. 

2 See Human and Animal Psychology, p. 283. See also his 
Physiological Psychology, II., chap. 16. 

2 See his An Outline of Psychology, p. 191. Pillsbury holds 
that simultaneous association may take three forms, but these 
are simply aspects of the general process denoted above. *'We 
may have associations between sensations that enter con- 
sciousness together within the same modality, 'associative 
synthesis'; we ma}'- have associations of a newly entering sen- 
sation with ideas already present, 'assimilation'; and we 
may have associations between ideas from different modali- 
ties, 'complications.* In associative synthesis the elements 
are closely knit together about some prominent member of 
the group, and their individuality is frequently lost in the 
whole. A musical clang affords the best instance of this kind 
of association. In the complication the different elements 
may be completely distinct and individual. Here, too, the 
elements come from different modalities. Examples of such 
a union are the connection between the idea of a word and 
the movements of the lar^mx that accompany its utterance 
in speech, and the connection of visual and tactual elements 
(n the formation of the idea of a thing." — A Study in Appercep- 
tion, American Journal of Psychology, Vol. VIII., p. 332. 

* For a general review of the subject of Association see the 
following: Robertson (George Groom), Philosophical Remains, 
pp. 107 et seq.; Spencer, Principles of Psych., chaps. 7 and 8; 
Ward, Encyclo. Brit., Vol. XX., p. 60; James, Prin. of Psych , 
Vol I., chap. 14. 



RETENTION OF EXPERIENCE. 199 

experienced simultaneously; the object is seen and 
tasted and touched and named and grasped, or thrust 
"way, at practically the same instant. The first 
act of adjustment occurs in view of all these data, 
and so they get organized into a unity, although the 
elements thereof retain a certain degree of freedom 
to form attachments with other units in a way to 
be described hereafter. Now, when a single datum 
of this complex is presented to consciousness the 
total situation tends to become redintegrated in Ham- 
iltonian phraseology. ''What the organism finds to- (_^ 
gether in the world in w^hich it lives," says Titche- 
ner,^ "remains together in perception or idea, although 
elementary mental processes may on occasion be- 
come disjoined from their original complex wholes 
and enter into combination with other elementary 
processes." 

Usually this process of redintegration occurs so 
quickly and noiselessly that w^e are likely to think 
we gained complex wholes as such originally, and 
not as elementary factors which have become in- 
tegrated into these wholes. But we can sometimes 
see the process at work in the way persons react to 
spoken or written language. When the listener hears 
the first w^ord of a sentence he will often run ahead 
to the others before they are mentioned if they have 
been associated in this way many times. An au- 
dience not infrequently moves faster in constructing 
sentences than the speaker who utters them. Bag- 
ley found this to be the case in some of his experi- 
ments. ''Occasionally," he says,^ "the observer's 

^ Op. cit, p. 208. 

^Apperception of the Spoken Sentence, American Journal 
t>f Psychology, Vol. XII., No. 1, and Reprint. 



200 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

apperceptive process anticipates the succession of 
symbols constituting the objective stimuh and form- 
ing the spoken sentence. This phenomenon is prob- 
ably unnoticed because the premature apperception 
tallies with the complete interpretation." I have 
tested a child of five v^ho had just begun reading, by 
asking her to close her eyes while I traced on her 
hand the first letter of w^ords with which she was 
familiar, and she was to tell me w^hat the letter was. 
As I traced H, she said ''hot/' the complex with 
which H has always been associated. So she would 
supplement B with ox, ^\dth which it had always been 
connected. (It should be said that the child began 
reading with words, but yet knew H and B when 
seen as separate elements, and she could give their 
names.) There may be some question about the 
wisdom of calling these last instances cases of simul- 
taneous association, but it seems that they show the 
thing in the process of making, at any rate. When 
the child is learning a word (visual, auditory, vocal, 
or graphic) for an object he progresses from a point 
where the items to be associated are in conscious- 
ness at successive periods, and are apprehended sepa- 
rately, to the point where they seem to be fused into 
a whole and are in consciousness simultaneously. 
Experience is all the time making associations that 
are often repeated in our lives simultaneous, though 
they are at first successive. 

130. But not all the events of our lives can be made 
simultaneous, of course, though unquestionably this 
is done whenever possible. However, some events 
succeed one another in, relatively speaking, consider- 
able intervals of time, and a record of them to be 



RETENTION OF EXPERIENCE. 201 

of much service in adjustment would have to rep- 
resent them in this way. Then suppose a child has 
had a series of experiences for a number of days — 
a, h, c, d, e, f, g; he has arisen in the morning, a; 
taken his bath, 6; eaten his breakfast, c; has had a 
game with a playmate, d; has gone to school, e; has 
recited first in his reading, /; has then recited in his 
number, g; and so on. Now, to-morrow when he 
starts out on the day's enterprises the series of events 
experienced on previous days will probably be re- 
instated more or less explicitly, the several items 
appearing in the sequence in which they originally 
occurred. If their order be repeated a sufficient 
number of times it is certain that there will be in- 
stituted a sort of anticipatory adjustment. This > 
is the method of contiguity, the successive associa- 
tion of Wundt and Titchener. Experiences that 
have been repeated in a certain sequence become 
coupled together, and the learner is able to foretell 
what mil happen in the future, and he is thus af- 
forded an opportunity to govern his conduct to-day 
in the light of what took place in the days past. 

For the most part events in daily life occur as they 
have occm-red, not always in precisely the same way, 
of course, but from day to day there will be no great 
variation in the lives of most individuals. When there 
is a marked departure from the customary order it is 
plain to see that the individual becomes confused. 
He gets out of line wdth things; he cannot anticipate 
the happening of events, and so he cannot pre-ad- 
just himself, which alone gives ease and assurance. 
Such a person is in some such relation to the world 
as the new-born infant. This phenomenon is often 



202 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

witnessed when a child enters school, or even college, and 
begins a wholly new regime of life. He is at first be- 
wildered, and behaves much jn principle as the infant 
does. He is quite ill-adjusted, that is to say, to the 
particular environment in which he finds himself. 
Only little by little does he come to learn the new 
order of things. But when he at last gets running on the 
school-room schedule he goes on his way without further 
embarrassment, taking the happenings of school life 
as a matter of course; which means that they are not 
new to him when they occur — he is never taken una- 
wares, for he is always foreminded, or perhaps fore- 
adjusted. 

131. Aristotle declared long ago that ideas were 
reproduced in three different relations — contiguity, 
similarity, and contrast; and psychologists since his 
time have quite generally adopted his view, although we 
are not in our day hearing so much about similarity 
and contrast as constituting bonds of association be- 
tween ideas. ^ Similarity is said to be a form of con- 
tiguity for the most part, and contrast is at bottom 
similarity, constrasted objects usually differing in 
only one minor characteristic; as when a large man 
suggests a small one the real bond of connection is the 
man, the complex of common elements. It is highly 
improbable that extremes in things suggest one another 
often. When we see a large man we go on thinking 
of what he can do, how much he weighs, what size 

* Titchener, for instance, does not mention similarity or 
contrast as modes of association of ideas, and Ziehen argues 
that in the last analysis they are but forms of contiguity. 
Ward (Encyclop;T^dia Britannica, ninth edition, Vol. XX., p. 
77) makes similarity a phase of contiguity. 



RETENTION OF EXPERIENCE. 203 

clothes he wears, and so on. What use would it be 
to think of a black man when one sees a white one? 
How could that assist in adaptation? How effectually- 
one Avould be ahenated from his environment by such 
thinking. To act as though one were dealing with a 
negro when he is in the presence of a Caucasian, or as 
;if it were the fourth of July Avhen the thermometer is 
— 25°, would be to conduct one's self after the manner 
of the insane. 

132. But some may say, as man}^ have said in the 
past, that it helps one to comprehend a thing for him 
to contrast it with its opposite. He can better un- 
derstand a cold day if he thinks of it in connection 
with a hot one; this brings out the difference and gives 
us a standard by which to measure the cold day. 
This sits well on the ear; but how can one have a warm- 
day consciousness and a cold-day consciousness at the 
same time? When one thinks of the Fourth of July 
there is revived a great complex of experiences cen- 
tring around this date; consciousness is filled mth 
things with which it has been concerned at this season 
in the past, and there is no room for the zero conscious- 
ness, with its elements of snow and frost and ice and 
cold hands, and all the other accompaniments. The 
Fourth-of-July mood cannot exist on intimate terms 
wath the middle-of- January mood; the two will not 
harmonize, and the one seems to hai^e little power to 
make the other more effective, except possibly that the 
violent change of going from one mood to the other 
intensifies the feelings centring about either one. The 
logician may readily think by contrasts in his study, 
and the layman may reflect upon his surroundings and 
see that things are contrasted, but neither proceeds in 



204 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

this way when he is actually dealing with objects in his 
efforts to get adjusted to them. 

So far as one can tell from the activities of the child 
he does not recall past experiences as contrasted with 
present impressions ; he does not think of the day when 
night comes on, to mention the classic example of 
certain psychologists. Rather, the night brings its 
own distinctive circle of thoughts and reactions there- 
upon; and if the day comes before consciousness at 
all it is simply because the anticipatory action of the 
mind, running along old series of events, finally reaches 
the day, which will bring safety from harm or opportunity 
for games and plays. Often one hears the child say 
when it is tucked in bed, ''To-morrow I can have a good 
swing, or I can go to see Elizabeth,'' or what not; 
but did any one ever hear a child say when taken 
into the dark, "Oh! how bright the day is compared 
with this night" ; or when he tasted a lump of sugar, " Oh! 
lemons are so sour"? What a state of affairs we should 
have if a lump of sugar tended to reinstate a vinegar 
tone of consciousness ! 

133. But how about the method of similarity in 
keeping a record of past events and reviewing it? 
The method of remembering by similarity means that 
in two series of experiences, a-d-g-j-k and h-e-f-j-m, 
quite different from one another in their outcome, there 
is a factor, /', which has many elements in common 
when regarded from certain standpoints. As it is 
found in these series ; as it is acted on by g in one case 
and e in the other, and as it acts on k in one case and 
j in the other, it is not just the same thing, but the 
bonds of connection in the present series are not as 
strong as old associations, and when / is experi- 



RETENTION OF EXPERIENCE. 205 

enced, /' is revived and consciousness runs out on j-m. 
Suppose you tell a child the story of the three bears; 
then when she goes in to luncheon and sees the three 
bowls of bread and milk, she at once runs out on to 
the story series and conducts herself as she fancies Silver- 
hair did. She does not eat her bread and milk as she 
has done before; these are bowls of soup now, and so 
on through a long list of events. 

The writer was witness to a scene recently which 
illustrates in a striking way the principle here involved. 
A story had been related, in the hearing of a seveu- 
y ear-old child, of the terrible deed of a St. Bernard 
dog that had formerly been very kind, but that had 
grown old and savage, and had finally attacked his 
master and killed him. A near-by neighbor had a St. 
Bernard dog with which the child had romped and 
played for several years; but the day following the 
narration of the story she met the dog and ran to her 
father in fright, imploring his protection. It was some 
time before her confidence was restored, and it seerned 
as if increased experience with the kindly dog, though 
always most agreeable, was never quite able to over- 
come the reaction gained from the story. We know 
how in oral discourse a certain sound or a word will 
turn one off from one train of thought on to another 
wholly distinct from it; the factors / and f are alike 
in sound, and consciousness runs out on the /' series. 
The associates of /' are for some reason more active 
at the moment than the associates of /. As Dewey 
says^ in discussing reproduction by similarity, ''If 
any activity has frequently recurred, any element 
often recurring gains in redintegrating power at the 
1 Psychology (Harper & Brothers, 1893), p. 103, 



206 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

expense of those occurring less often, and will finally 
gain power of acting independently so as itself to red- 
integrate ideas by the law of continuity." James * 
discusses the matter in a most satisfactory way, and 
his words may be quoted at some length : 

"Spontaneous Trains of Thought. — Take, to fix our 
ideas, the two verses from ' Locksley Hall': 

'' ' I, the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time/ 
and 

" ' For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose 
runs.' 

" Why is it that when we recite from memory one of 
these lines, and get as far as the ages, that portion of 
the other line which follows, and, so to speak, sprouts out 
of the ages does not also sprout out of our memory and 
confuse the sense of our words? Simply because the 
w^ord that follows the ages has its brain process awak- 
ened not simply by the brain-process of the ages alone, 
but by it plus the brain-process of all the words preced- 
ing the ages. The word ages at its moment of strongest 
acivity would, per se, indifferently discharge into 
either 'in' or 'one.' So would the previous words 
(whose tension is momentarily much less strong than 
that of ages) each of them indifferently discharge into 
either of a large number of other words with w^hich they 
have been at different times combined. But when the 
processes of 'I, the heir of all the ages/ simultaneously 
vibrate in the brain, the last one of them in a maximal, 
the others in a fading, phase of excitement, then the 
strongest line of discharge will be that which they all 
alike tend to take. 'In' and not 'one' or any other 
* Psychology, Briefer Course, pp. 256-259. 



RETENTION OF EXPERIENCE. 207 

tvord will be the next to awaken, for its brain process 
has previously vibrated in unison not only with that 
of ages, but with that of all those other words whose 
activity is dying away. It is a good case of the effec- 
tiveness over thought of what we called a 'fringe/ 

*' Bui if some of these preceding words — 'heir/ for 
example, had an intensely strong association with some 
brain-tracts entirely disjoined in experience from the 
poem of 'Locksley Hall' — if the reciter, for instance, 
were tremulously awaiting the opening of a will which 
might make him a millionaire — it is probable that 
the path of discharge through the words of the poem 
would be suddenly interrupted at the word 'heir/ 
His emotional interest in that word would be such that its 
own special association would prevail over the combined 
ones of the other words. He would, as we say, be 
abruptly reminded of his personal situation, and the 
poem would lapse altogether from his thoughts. 

" The writer of these pages has every year to learn 
the names of a large number of students who sit in 
alphabetical order in a lecture-room. He finally 
learns to call them by name, as they sit in their accus- 
tomed places. On meeting one in the street, howeve.', 
early in the year, the face hardly ever recalls the 
name, but it may recall the place of its owner in the 
lecture-room, his neighbors' faces, and consequently 
his general alphabetical position; and then, usually 
as the common associate of all these combined data, 
the student's name surges up in his mind. 

" A father wishes to show to some guests the progress 
of his rather dull child in kindergarten instruction. 
Holding the knife upright on the table he says, 'What- 
do you call that, my boy?' 'I calls it a knife, I does/ 



208 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

is the sturdy reply, from which the child cannot ba 
induced to swerve by . any alteration in the form of 
question, until the father, recollecting that in the 
kindergarten a pencil was used, not a knife, draws a 
long one from his pocket, holds it in the same way, 
and then gets the wdshed-for answer, 'I calls it vertical* 
All the concomitants of the kindergarten experience 
had to recombine their effect before the word 'verti- 
cal could be reawakened." 

134. It seems evident enough that in any complex 
consciousness there mil be more or less switching 
off from series of experiences on to others, due to the 
similarity in respect of auditor}^ or visual character- 
istics of factors in each of the series. The sequential 
order in many series will not be so firmly established 
but that thought can be steered off onto another track 
by the switchman who stands at the parting of the ways. 
But this is certainly not always an advantage in ad- 
justment; on the contrary, it is sometimes a real detri- 
ment, as when a listener hearing read the line, 

" I, the heir of all the ages," etc., 
goes from the word heir on to an atmosphere series, 
and so loses connection with the situation in hand. 
Every case of shunting off in language in this way 
must prove a disadvantage, except possibly where the 
right and the wrong sequences are both before the 
mind, and the absurdity of the wrong sequence, in 
this particular setting, is appreciated, and the situa- 
tion excites mirthful reaction. A distinguished Ameri- 
can responding recently to a toast at a dinner abroad 
was praising his country for its greatness in all things, 
even in art, in which she was thought by some to be 
very crude. He said he knew an artist who made a 



RETENTION OF EXPERIENCE. 209 

picture of a hen so faithful to the original that one day 
"she fell from her hangings into a barrel and laid there." 
If he had been dealing with a serious matter this dis- 
turbance in the orderly progress of thought would be a 
hindrance to ready understanding, but in this instance 
the entertaining of two so incongruous ideas in the mind 
at the same time, under circumstances not requiring an 
effort at harmonization, results simply in an overflow 
of energy without any outcome in adjustment. 

135. The conclusion we reach is that for the needs of 
adjustment experiences must get reproduced in the 
sequences in which they originally occurred, except 
that in the case of assimilation groups of experiences 
may fuse with one another instead of the various 
events following on after each other. In the most effi- 
cient minds this is the way thinking proceeds. Things 
are brought together only as they have some organic 
connection — only as they may be adjusted to in the 
same way. But a more unstable mind will catch up 
with some accidental correspondence between similar 
elements in two widely different complex systems of 
events, and be whirled off on to a side track.* 

* I have made no reference here to the distinctions now 
urged by some psychologists between recollection and recog- 
nition; it does not seem essential for my purpose, and 
the genetic aspect of the subject, and the neurological also, 
are so much in the dark that it has not seemed advisable to 
take up the matter. Both recollection and recognition lead 
to adjustment. Bentley (Amer. Journ. of Psych., 1899) speaks 
of the recollective consciousness as giving remote adaptation; 
this recollective consciousness makes use of the memory image, 
and is later in development than the recognition consciousness, 
which does not make use of the memory image in recognizing 
presentations. His view is in accord with Flechsig's theory of 
association-centres which develop much later than the sense- 



210 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 



§ 2. The Abridgment of Experience in Learning. 

136. As experiences increase, effective adjustment 
demands some method of condensing or abridging them 
so as to secure economy in the mental life. We have 
already seen some such a plan in operation; when 
the child conducts himself toward all the members 
of a group as he does toward some individual thereof 
with which he has had experience he is making use of 
a very economical device. Think of what would be 
required of him if he had to learn de novo every object 
he came in contact with. In earlier times it was thought 
that in the learning of things in this way the learner 
drew off the common characteristics from a immber of 
individuals in which they were embodied, and organ- 
ized them into a new tiling which was called a concept, 
or general or abstract idea, which differed from the 
percept, among other w^ays, in that it could not be 
imaged. It really did not exist '^ except in thought.'' 
There is nothing in the world, it was said, to which a 
concept exactly corresponds. 

centres, and through which the recoUective process takes place. 
His experiments upon mutilation of the association-centres, 
which result in a destruction of recoUective memory, while 
direct recognition does not seem to be affected, apparently 
estabhshes a vital difference between the two. However, to 
repeat, if direct recognition and recollection both occur for 
the purpose of securing adjustment it is not material to our 
present needs to discriminate between them. 

The reader is referred to the following for a detailed discus- 
sion of this topic. See Chap, on Recognition in James, Princi- 
ples of Psychology; Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology; Stout, 
cp. cif.; Wundt, op. cit.; Baldwin, Mental Development, 
Methods and Processes. 



ABRIDGMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 211 

This view, while it recognizes the general tendency 
toward the abridgment of experience in develop- 
ment, yet it does not seem to conform precisely to 
the facts of the mental life, nor does it meet fully 
the requirements for adjustment. It is plain enough 
why the learner should group together things which 
possess attributes in common; but it is not apparent 
how an idea which has parted company with the 
world to be reacted upon, could help a person in his 
dealing with this world. For purposes of efficiency, 
it is true, all irrelevant particulars in the things we 
come much in contact with must be ignored. We 
must take account of just the vital characteristics 
in situations; but always internal processes must 
be a counterpart of the external order of things. If 
the concept or abstract idea be looked upon as the 
result of a kind of process of natural selection among 
experiences then its function in adjustment is easily 
understood. It is not something disjoined from 
the world of realities; but many of the less important 
details of experience with these realities have been 
reduced to an inconspicuous place in the idea-com- 
plex. Nothing is abstracted in the sense of wholly 
separated from realities, but there is a process of 
abridgment or sugaring-oif constantly going on, 
with the result that a more highly concentrated prod- 
uct is being secured, but it is always just the sugar 
that was in the mental sap originally. 

137. The concept or general idea, or abstract notion, 
appears gradually, as we should expect, upon the 
repetition of experiences with many indi^dduals pos- 
sessing certain similar attributes, and which are re- 
acted upon in much the same way. "The progress 



212 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

j/ of intellectual gro\\i:h/' says Maudsley,^ "is a prog- 
ress from the concrete and simple to the general 
and abstract — from the feeling to the image, from 
the image to the idea, from the simple idea to the 
complex idea, from complex ideas to abstract con- 
ceptions; thereupon the general or abstract term 
becomes the sign of a class of perceptions or con- 
ceptions, is used as a convenient representative unit 
or substitute for them, like an algebraic symbol, and 
functions as such in subsequent mental operations. 
Wlien we wish to know the true meaning of the ab- 
stract, to test rigorously what it actually represents, 
we must alwavs so back to the concrete; and when we 
do that we find that in the last resort it represents the 
mode of affection of an individual by an object or a class 
of objects, and his special mode of reaction to the ob- 
ject. That is his apprehension of it, which appre- 
hension or mental grasping, be it noted, includes 
movement as a constituent element, is not, as com- 
monly implied, receptive only, but is also reactive — 
a bi-polar event, sensory and motor." 

138. The general idea in order to be of service in 
adjustment must comprise in more or less generalized 
form, differing of course with individuals, those char- 
acteristics of a group of similar objects that have 
come to be considered by the individual as the things 
which are of real moment to him. These general 
ideas mth their accompanying adjustments come, 
then, to constitute the individual's mode of regarding 
objects. Economy compels him to disregard rela- 
tively unimportant details in things; he must get 
to deal with them with reference to what is funda- 

» Body and Will, pp. 30, 31. 



ABRIDGMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 213 

mental and really vital. This must be what Hods;- 
son has in mind when he says: ^ ''No object of repre- 
sentation remains long before consciousness in the 
same state, but fades, decays, and becomes indis- 
tinct. Those parts of the object, however, which 
possess an interest resist this tendency to gradual 
decay of the whole object. . . . This inequality in 
the object — some parts, the unresisting, submitting 
to decay — others, the interesting parts, resisting 
it — when it has continued for a certain time, ends 
in becoming a new object." 

Take, for instance, the learning of the apple. All 
individuals present certain similar attributes, or they 
appear to be so to the learner, and they call forth 
always the same sort of reactions. Each apple has 
individual peculiarities, too, doubtless, and these 
tend to excite appropriate responses, and so to leave 
behind them distinct mental images for future use in 
adjustment. But these individual peculiarities ap- 
pear so infrequently, relatively speaking, that they 
get swallowed up in the complex of impressions and 
associated channels of discharge,^ established by the 
impressions and reactions which are most often re- 
peated. There comes in time to be established a 
sort of drainage system, with a main stream into which 
flows all the water falling in the region. Now when 
one thinks of the system it is the principal stream 
that holds his attention, and the smaller streams 
occupy only the fringe of consciousness. So with 
the apple, it is the common qualities in all individuals 

* Quoted by James, Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 262. 
2 Cf . Ziehen, op. cit., pp. 180 et seq., and 184 et seq. Also 
Binet, The Psychology of Reasoning, pp. 184 et seq. 



214 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

that have been especially meaningful for the organism, 
}/ and so they, organized into a complex whole, have 
gained first place in attention, and have determined 
the manner of reaction.^ 

§ 3. The Function of Conventional Language. 

139. There is another factor which enters into the 
development of abstract ideas which people often 
overlook, with the result that they go astray in their 
efforts to trace the history and discover the com- 
ponents and connections of these abstract ideas. It 
is a simple enough fact, that when the child is learning 
an apple he hears the people around him using the 
word which designates it; and in time he comes to 
pronounce it himself, and later to see it, and still later 
to write it. Now the auditor}^ word and the vis- 
ual word are "but certain kinds of auditory and visual 
data about the world, while the spoken word and 
written word are forms of reaction thereupon; and 
in due season these data and reactions become or- 
ganized with all other data and reactions related 
to the apple, and the whole forms a complex reactive 
system.^ 

As experiences with the apple increase the verbal 

* Cf . Speer, Arithmetic, pp. 18, 19; cf. also Ward, o'p. cii.^ 
pp. 76, 77; Guyau, Education and Heredity, p. 109; Titchener, 
An Outline of Psychology, pp. 266, 267. 

^ When the word is revived in consciousness it tends, of 
course, to bring up the complex \A\h. which it has usuall}^ been 
associated, whether rightly or otherv\'ise. A boy reading in 
Eggleston's history of the early explorers came across the 
statement, "the tracks that went straight to the camp," and 
in recitation said, "the railroads that went straight to the 
cam_p." 



FUNCTION OF CONVENTIONAL LANGUAGE. 215 

factors, especially the auditory and visual forms, are 
continually repeated, while only the common or uni- 
versal characteristics of the object itself as they are 
apprehended by the individual are constantly pre- 
sented. As soon as the word is understood it is used 
when the object is not present to the senses, though 
of course the latter is reinstated more or less completely 
in memory. But it can be seen that as the child goes 
on in his learning, the word being constantly repeated 
in a concrete wa}^, and the object only reinstated, 
that the word would grow more and more prominent 
in consciousness, and the object would slowly dis- 
appear. That is to say, the verbal elements, because 
of their more frequent repetition for one thing, tend 
to become more and more prominent reminders, so 
to speak, of accustomed reactions. They have al- 
ways been found in company with certain other things, 
data about the world and response thereto, and the 
organism comes really to know them by the company 
they keep. People who are never seen apart from 
one another get connected together in our thought 
so that when we see one we look naturally for the 
others. We get into the habit of dealing with an in- 
dividual as though he could not be separated from 
his friends; we have to invite them all to our parties 
if Ave invite any one; we expect they will take the 
same attitudes toward questions of religion, politics, 
etc. So one expects always to find any given word 
in a certain complex of experiences, and he gradu- 
ally acquires confidence in reacting on the word largely 
without looking up all its associates. 

140. And then the need of economy in dealing with 
the world makes it very necessary to get some way 



216 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

of dealing with things with the least possible attention 
and effort. Adjustment to an increasingly complex 
environment requires that consciousness be relieved 
from looking after the minutiae of the adjusting 
processes, the aim being to reduce to the lowest terms 
the degree of attention required for reaction upon 
familiar situations, so that opportunity may be had 
to learn new things. It seems obvious that if any 
organism continued to be engrossed with every act 
it performed in the same conscious way that it was 
at the start, it could not get much beyond the amoeba 
stage, where every activity, no matter how often re- 
peated, demands the use of all the powers of the creat- 
ure. Quantz, in studying the psychology of reading,* 
sees many evidences of this abbreviating process in 
the functioning of the human mind, and he is led to 
the view that the development of mind requires that 
processes, once conscious, be handed over to the sub- 
conscious mechanism, so that consciousness may be 
left free for the acquisition of higher powers and the 
performance of tasks more difficult. 

Economy in mental effort in adjustment is met by 
the word taking upon . itself the office of reinstating 
the adjustive process without reviving all the impres- 
sions and conscious processes which were experienced 
in its evolution, and with which the word was origin- 
ally connected.^ There must be a sort of short- 

^ See the Psychological Review, Vol. II., p. 36. 

' Cf . Titchener, ojp. cit, p. 208, note on ''verbal association." 
In another place, p. 273, this author states the case in this 
way: "The word idea, which originally served to clinch a 
simultaneous association of other ideas, tends to replace these; 
our memory of past events is very frequently nothing more 
than the reproduction of the form of words which we have 



FUNCTION OF CONVENTIONAL LANGUAGE. 217 

circuiting process, speaking neurologically, whereby 
the path of nervous discharge gets estabhshed from 
the word directly to the motor-centres instead of con- 
tinuing to pass through the various sensory-centres 
which Were originally active. Or it may be that the 
discharge continues to pass over the original course, 
but this becomes so deeply grooved that the energy 
reaches the desired point without any supervision on 
the part of consciousness. Bagley ^ has found that 'Hhe 
apperception of auditory symbols involves the presence 
in consciousness of visual and verbal ideas mainly; 
i.e., the conscious 'stuff' of the auditory symbolic 
apperception is made up in large part of visual and 
verbal (visual-auditory^-kinsesthetic) sense elements. 
The auditory and kinsesthetic elements (apart from 
the role which they play in the formation of the verbal 
idea), seemingly form but a small part, and the tem- 
perature, taste, and smell elements a still smaller part 
of this 'stuff.''' Baldwdn in discussing this general 
subject maintains ^ that an object of perception is 
assimilated either to the "memory copy/' or to some 
symbol, word, or otherwise, which comes to stand 
for it. The child has acquired the power of reacting to 
the latter; why should not that answer for the other 
as well? 

141. The process of abbreviation and symbolization 
goes on still further. The adjustment to the apple 
results in the establishment of a certain complex of 

associated with them; we sa}^ that we 'remember' hearing 
Patti sing twenty years ago, when all that we really remember 
is our statement of the fact." 

*0p. cit., p. 30. 

^ Mental Development, Method and Processes, p. 308. 



218 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

experiences, the details of which may at first be quite 
prominent in the attentive consciousness; for this 
is the only way in which adjustment can be secured. 
When one is learning a certain reaction upon a situa- 
tion attention is occupied with discovering which 
of a large number of possible actions are appropriate 
on this occasion. When the reaction becomes well 
established the stimulus yielded by the situation will 
set off more or less automatically the right adaptive 
responses. It is really the function of the attentive 
/consciousness to take charge of reactions until they 
attain this degree of automatic facility. The focus 
of consciousness is the assembling room where the 
sensoiy and motor elements of adjustment are put 
together to make the proper reaction complex. 

In every adjustment there is, of course, a feeling 
element, or rather accompaniment. We cannot con- 
ceive of the organism having any experience which 
would exert absolutely no influence upon the feelings. 
But as with the attention, so with feeling — when an 
adjustment becomes easy and assured the feeling 
element usually becomes more and more subdued, 
until it passes gradually into just a mood or disposi- 
tion of the organism. So we get something like an 
apple mood, a mother mood, a teacher mood, and 
so on in respect of everything we are thoroughly fa- 
miliar with. And now the word has all along been 
one of the elements of the complexes denoted by apple, 
mother, teacher, and the rest; and as condensation 
proceeds it happens easily that the word comes to rein- 
state little else than the mood, and the other elements 
of the complex may not rise above subconsciousness 
at all. The principle here involved is illustrated in 



FUNCTION OF CONVENTIONAL LANGUAGE. 219 

the reactions produced in one when under certain 
circumstances he hears such words as ''murder" or 
"fire'' or ''help" or the hke. These reinstate no 
definite images but yet they throw tlie organism into 
an attitude which is often distinctly painful. Such 
terms as "virtue," "modesty/' and "justice," on the 
other hand, will beget an agreeable tone; and in all 
cases there is, of course, a prompting to some sort of 
action in accordance with what has been done in the 
past under similar circumstances. 

142. So the word as an element of a complex of 
sensory, ideational, and feeling processes which have 
issued in definite adaptive reactions has gradually 
gained the power to set ofi those reactions on its own 
motion, according as the other elements in the com- 
plex disappear from the focus of consciousness in all 
every-day experiences. If, then, you say to a child 
of nine or ten years of age who is fond of Baldwin 
apples, "What about a Baldwin apple?" there is an 
immediate response directed toward getting one, but 
it is highly improbable that there is in this case ^ distinct 
or focal imaging in any modality. In this typical 
instance there has been given to the word sort of dele- 
gate powers ; it is authorized to act for the community 
which it represents; to be spokesman for its fellows 
who remain silent in the councils in which they are 
concerned. But it must be true to the interests of 
the community, or it will be called to account. The 

* Without question there must be revived in this case a 
general pattern of gustatory, visual, and kinsesthetic contents 
corresponding to the individual's experiences with Baldwin 
apples, but the point is that this pattern is not focal; it is 
not apprehended attentively. 



220 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

affairs of the mental life, like the affairs of government, 
are carried on by a relatively small number of repre- 
sentatives who reflect the needs and wishes of their 
constituencies. 

As life grows more and more complex the symboliz- 
ing process must become more and more prominent, 
and it is doubtless true, as many philosophers have 
declared, that the most highly developed people think 
the most largely in abstract (verbal) terms. One 
whose sphere of adjustment is narrowly limited, who 
has learned but relatively few things, may perhaps get 
along well enough if his thought is largely a representa- 
tion in greater or less detail of concrete experience. 
He is not in need of any abbreviated mode of utilizing 
such experience in his adaptations to the world. Of 
course it is imderstood that verbal symbols are empty 
and meaningless except the realities which they repre- 
sent have been actually experienced. Symbols as 
such have no absolute value for adjustment. The 
mere memorizing of words, so that one can vocalize 
them when seen or heard, or reproduce them graphic- 
ally, is of no consequence whatever in dealing with 
the concrete situations which they denoted to those 
who made them. The child who is put to learning 
the dictionary in the belief that he will thus acquire the 
knowledge and skill which the words it contains sym- 
bolize will make little progress in mastering the world. 
This ''Noah's-ark" method of learning will not work. 
It fails because it does not discriminate between real 
and symbolic worth; it disjoins things which were never 
meant to be separated ; it assigns to a word independent 
value ; whereas it is of account only because of its asso- 
ciations. 



FUNCTION OF CONVENTIONAL LANGUAGE. 221 

143. We have certainly overestimated the vakie of 
the dictionary in leading the learner into a knowledge 
of the nature and constitution of his environments 
and his relations thereto without coming into direct 
contact with them first. Yet we should not overlook 
the fact that the learning of language in the right Avay 
does enable the individual to participate in the life of 
the race. But he must first gain the typical concrete 
data which give to the words the content which racial 
experience has put into them. And the more thor- 
oughly language becomes genuinely representative of 
actual experience the more efficient it is. It must be 
possible always to translate language into concrete 
terms if desired, and of course we must be able to use 
it accurately and readily for the guidance of conduct; 
but it is enough for adaptation ordinarily that we should 
get the general significance of the word, — realize 
its general application, and not follow it out into its 
detailed references. The principle involved here is 
illustrated when one listens to an .address. He finds 
that the flow of words makes a certain general impres- 
sion, and at the conclusion of the lee v are its purport has 
been appreciated so that it could be embodied in prac- 
tice, but the thought may not at any point in the dis- 
course have run out into definite images. 

Suppose a patriotic man of the times to have been 
listening to Lincoln as he delivered his Gettysburg 
address. He would certainly have been thrilled by 
his discourse, as we are told his auditors all were on 
that great occasion. But the speaker moved along 
far too rapidly to admit of his hearers imaging the 
situations he described; and yet at the conclusion a 
certain effect had been produced upon their conduct. 



222 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

His words all awakened some response, but it was in 
the way of stimulating moods and tendencies to action 
which had been aroused whenever w^ere received the 
verbal stimuli which had previously set them off on 
many occasions. These moods and tendencies were 
all of the same temper; they each influenced the organ- 
ism in the same way, so that the effect was cumulatii^e. 
This accounts for the phenomenon of onty moderate 
enthusiasm during the first part of the address, but 
tremendous enthusiasm at its close, a thing to be wit- 
nessed very frequently when an orator is moving a 
body of people to action. 

If there was in Lincoln's audience, however, a person 
who had never heard of patriotism; who was unfa- 
miliar -^dth the great struggle which the speaker was 
describing; who had never felt any devotion to his 
country — such an one would not respond enthusiastic- 
ally to what was said, except as he caught the fever 
of those about him, or was stirred by the orator's 
voice and manner. But the words per se w^ould pro- 
duce no reactions, save verbal ones, where they sim- 
ply reproduce themselves in synonyms. It is doubt- 
less true that one always seeks to read some meaning 
into the words he hears. If they are familiar they 
immediately put the organism into an appropriate atti- 
tude toward the situations to which they relate, but if 
they are strange then an effort is made either to iden- 
tify them by substituting for them words that are 
known, or to carry them down into the realities which 
they denote, so that one may adapt himself aright. 



CHAPTER XII. 

APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 

§ I. The Method of Apperception. 

144. I LOOK out of my window and detect some- 
thing moving through the air which I say is a bird, 
I react to the object as a bird before I really appre- 
hend many of the details from which I must have, 
originally at any rate^ gained my knowledge of the 
thing. ^ As I reflect upon the matter I appreciate 
that there must have been incorporated in my appre- 

^ Pillsbury (American Journal of Psychology, Vol. VIII., 
p. 373) describes a similar process in the recognition of a word 
as a whole before the separate elements are apprehended. 
"Here the further question arises, How can we explain this 
peculiar phenomenon that the words come to consciousness 
before the separate letters, and is able to work upon them 
while they are being read? We have seen that the length 
and general appearance of the word played an important role 
in reading, while but a very few of the letters themselves were 
read at the first glance. This gives a clue to the puzzle. There 
is an association between the general form of the word and 
the word as a complex of motor, auditory, and visual sensa- 
tions in connection with other objects of perception. When 
the word is exposed this association is effective at once and 
calls up a word without the least reference to the tendencies at 
work between the letters. It is the word that results from 
this process which exercises supervision over the connection 
between the letters." 

223 



224 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

hension of the object data of color, form, movement, 
and what may be called data of environment. These 
data as a complex have in the past denoted this thing; 
I have reacted to them in certain definite ways, prom- 
inently in later times by giving them a name. These 
reactions have in all instances brought me into a certain 
kind of relation with this object, and gradually the 
attentive consciousness has been drawn off from the 
adjusting process, so that in time the sensory^ elements 
set off the appropriate reaction more or less automatic- 
ally. And eventually some one group of data as those 
of movement will be sufficient to reinstate the ad- 
justive attitude. 

145. But I do not know what bird it is and I am 
eager to ascertain. It alights on a tree and I strain 
my eyes to discover whether it is one of a dozen vari- 
eties that inhabit the trees on my lawn. Now I catch 
a bit of color that makes me think it is an oriole; but 
while I am looking I discover a movement which leads 
me to think it is a robin, and so I am in doubt. But 
suddenly a clear, musical note flashes out upon the 
air and the question is decided; it is an oriole. Now 
what process has my mind been passing through? 
To begin with, I am impelled to find out just what 
bird it is in order that I may know what to expect 
from it ; I am restless if I do not know. If it is really an 
oriole then I shall keep my ears open, and perhaps 
I may get a song from it ; and I would be equally pleased 
to get a good view of it. If I can find where its nest is 
I shall pay a visit to that tree occasionally and look 
and listen. This desire leads me to observe now this 
mark and now that one, in the hope, born of the ex- 
perience in hunting birds, that I may detect certain 



APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 225 

characteristics which have always in the past been 
connected with a particular species of bird. When 
I got the first glimpse of that golden color there was 
reinstated momentarily the oriole consciousness, or 
possibly mood. I felt the effect of it in my whole 
being; I was all expectant of joyful sounds and a 
pleasing sight. But the next moment the robin 
consciousness was awakened, and there was a somewhat 
different attunement of the organism. Finally the 
song established the oriole reaction so strongly that 
all the others were completely inhibited. This new 
thing became apperceived^ by an integrated, solid- 
ified body of old experiences with similar objects. 
And this instance is, of course, typical of most of 
the adjustments which I am called upon to make in 
my daily life. 

A simple experiment or two will illustrate a par- 
ticular phase of the process under discussion. When 
one looks upon these few lines (Fig. 4) he '^sees" a 
ladder, a tree, and a man, as he says. Now, of course, 
these lines reinstate experiences the observer has 
had with the objects suggested, and he really '^ sees'' 
far more than is presented to the organ of sight; he 
constructs these objects out of his experience. And 
there is in this construction much more than mere 
visual elements; there are motor and organic elements 

^ The term Apperception is used in a somewhat different sense 
by different writers, but it is used here in the Herbartian sense. 
See De Garmo, Herbart and the Herbartians, chapter on His- 
tory of the Idea of Apperception. See also Lange, Appercep- 
tion; Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. II., chap. 8; Baldwin, 
op.cit., pp. 308 et seq ; Pillsbury, op. cit., p. 3; Bagley, op. 
cit, p. 24; Harris, Herbart and Pestalozzi Compared, Ed. Rev 
May, 1893. 



226 



EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 




Fig. 4. 



that have been connected with cHmbing ladders or trees, 

or falling from them. A person 
who ''loses his breath" or gets 
dizzy climbing a ladder will 
experience a trace of these 
sensations when he looks at 
these lines. One who always 
goes bounding up a ladder and 
finds exhilaration in it will feel 
a tingling in his muscles, as it 
were, to repeat the process. 
And these instances are but 
suggestive of other motor and 
organic phenomena that occur 
when one interprets these lines 
as tree, man, ladder. The same thing in principle hap- 
pens when one gives his attention to the lines on the 
left side of Fig. 5. He says he ''sees" a duck's head; 
but he constructs it largely 
out of his experiences. In 
most cases his construction 
wall contain, in greater or 
less detail and explicit- 
ness,^ an auditory element 
(the quack), visual elements ^^^ ^ ^^^^^^ wiTmer's Analytical 
(the waddle, swimming, Psych..iogy,Ginn& Co..Pubi'rs.) 

pond of water), a gustatory element (flavor of the 
duck's flesh), and a motor element (the vocal word 
duck, at any rate, and probably more); and in in- 

1 1 have tested young children with these pictures, and upon 
seeing the duck's head they often imitate the quack and 
the waddUng. They hop hke a rabbit, bark like a dog, and 
so on when they see their representations. 




APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 227 







dividual cases there will be other elements, depending 
upon individual experiences. Turning the attention 
now to the right side of the figure, one sees a rabbit's 
head; he recognizes it as such because there are rein- 
stated more or less fully the motor and organic processes 
that in past experience have been connected with an 
object presenting certain of these visual data. The 
duck consciousness and the rabbit consciousness are 
distinctive, because they comprise not only different 
visual, but also different motor and organic elements, 
and so, of course, the objects are not mistaken for each 
other; they are discriminated, that is to say. 

146. Now let us see what occurs when one comes 
in contact with things which are not readily under- 
stood. I have frequently shown 
classes of students a Hyomei In- 
haler (A, Fig. 6), and I have found 
only a few in any class who had 
previously seen it or anything very 
closely resembling it. At first sight 
every one interprets the thing in 
one way or another, although the 
interpretation is apt to change sev- 
eral times before the mind comes to 
rest upon it. As Titchener says,^ 
there can be no complex presented tiiFi J 
to us that will be so utterly unknown ^ 
and strange that we will not recog- 
nize it as something — as a machine or some sort of a 
plant, or something else. One student thinks of a 
cigar-holder, another of an ink-well, another of a phy- 
sician's thermometer-case, and so on. But as each looks 

* Op. cit, p. 271. 



Fig. 6. 



228 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

more intently he discovers marks which lead him to 
think it is something other than he first guessed. Aftei 
a time, and while the students are still trying to place 
the object, I let them handle it. They set to work 
manipulating it, and discover that the ends (a — h) 
screw off, and this gives them an entirely unexpected 
datum. They look into it and see it filled with gauze, 
and this settles the doubts of some but not of ever>^ 
one. Finally, the doubtful ones test it by the sense 
of smell, and the mystery is cleared up for all who have 
had any experience with menthol or the like. This 
odor has always been an element in a complex of medi- 
cines and apparatus for inhaling, and this thing must 
be designed for that purpose. Nothing precisely like 
this has been seen before, but still it possesses so many 
characteristics that belong to the class of inhaling 
things that it is appropriated by the latter, and dealt 
with on that basis. 

147. But there have always been some students 
w^ho had not previously experienced either the visual 
or the olfactory data presented by the object, and so 
they had really to learn it practically de novo, although 
they knew it was made of rubber at least. Those 
who were familiar with the thing withdrew their atten- 
tion from it as soon as they glanced at it, for the whole 
situation was then easily understood; but those to 
whom the whc">e thing was new examined every phase 
of it with care, seeking to gain all possible experiences 
with it. These persons were learning — just as does 
the infant who is constantly being placed in situations 
which he must get to understand in all their possibili- 
ties, so that he will know what to expect from them — 
what total influence they will exert upon his organ- 



APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 229 

ism. Accordingly he experiments with them in every 
way in which they can affect him, and he is careful to 
get the signs by which his experience with them may 
be inferred in the future without having to repeat his 
experiment, if this is not desired; or if it is desired, 
so that this may be known and no opportunity to 
enjoy it be let pass. 

148. Suppose we take a situation which is typical 
of most of those that are met mth in all school work. 
Let a pupil be set to prove the proposition that the 
sum of the interior angles of a triangle is equal to two 
right angles. How will his mind work upon this? At 
the outset he constructs his figure, or images it; and 
as he looks, now at the lines and now at the angles, 
there come up before the mind's eye propositions he 
has already proved that constitute elements of this 
more complex one. He sees certain truths in this 
problem because he has seen them in other problems. 
So really this proposition is apperceived through others, 
not as a whole in precisely the form in which the ele- 
ments were learned, for this really constitutes a new 
situation, in its assemblage of parts at any rate. It is 
an aggregate of elements that are known individually, 
and the learning of this proposition consists in organ- 
izing these elements into an organic whole, and estab- 
lishing this as a distinct thing in visual, verbal, and 
perhaps other terms. 

Suppose, again, a student be asked to solve a com- 
plex algebraic problem. He will be required to ana- 
lyze the problem to discover relationships between 
factors which wdll reveal the meaning of certain at 
present ill-understood quantities. In proceeding with 
this analysis every step will be taken in the light of 



230 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

experience with similar though simpler situations in 
the past. As he attends to the problem before him 
he discovers that it is composed of elementary prob- 
lems with which he is familiar, and he arranges these 
in a new pattern or design, as it were, and so he '^proves" 
the new proposition. And if we take any situation in 
arithmetic or grammar or physics or politics or edu- 
cation, we will find that what we are trying to do in 
solving it is to get it into terms of our present under- 
standing ^ of things more or less closely related to it. 

149. It is evident that in assimilation a new experi- 
ence modifies the old reactive system with w^hich it 

* Baldwin states the case as follows, speaking from the 
standpoint of the reactive rather than the ideal processes: 
"In the light of their motor effects," he says, "we are able 
to say that the assimilation of any one element to another, 
or the assimilation of any two or more such elements to a third, 
is due to the unifying of their motor discharges in the single 
larger discharge which stands for the apperceived result. The 
old discharge may itself be modified — it cannot remain 
exactly as it was when it stood for a less complex content. 
So this larger discharge represents the habit of the organism 
in as far as both the earlier tendencies to discharge belonging 
to these elements of content are represented in it; but it also 
represents accommodation — i.e., if the assimilation, appercep- 
tion, synthesis, is smoothly accomplished — since it stands 
for a richer objective content. Presentations are associated 
by contiguity because they unite in a single motor discharge; 
by similarity, because both of them, through their association 
with a third, have come to unite in a common discharge. The 
energy of the new presentation process finds itself drawn off 
in the channels of the discharge of the old one which it re- 
sembles; the motor associations, therefore, and with them 
all the organic and revived mental elements stirred up with 
them, come to identify or unite the new content with the old." 
— Mental Developrncnt, Methods and Processes, p. 309. 



APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 231 

has become assimilated. A child who is familiar 
with the varieties of apples known as Russet, Baldwin, 
and Northern Spy, will understand to a certain degree, 
though not precisely, how he is to conduct himself 
toward a Greening when he sees it for the first time. 
But when he has eaten the latter he will have acquired 
a new item of experience which wdll be annexed to his 
apple complex in a general way; and its effect, of 
course, will be to make reaction in the future more 
definite in respect of this particular variety of apple, 
but not of all varieties. It is not apparent, as some 
theorists would have us believe, that reaction upon 
Baldwin apples will be affected by an experience with 
Gillyflowers — and why should it? How would ad- 
justment be promoted by such a plan? Modification 
of old complexes by new knowledge is of the nature 
of extension with regard to just the phases of the environ- 
ments to which the new knowledge relates, and not to 
every sort of thing. An Indian could not learn how 
to get along with white men any more amicably by 
cultivating acquaintance with the cannibals of the 
islands of the sea, though he might class all under 
the term "man^^; nor could a child learn more about 
•the domestic cat by having experience with the wild 
variety. 

If, however, a new experience should happen to be 
quite neutral, having no special meaning for the organ- 
ism, it would have little if any effect upon the apper- 
ceptive system. The individual would not give it 
special attention, for it would not be important that 
he should adjust himself to it in any special way; he 
would simply let it pass. One can see, though, to 
illustrate by citing an instance of an opposite sort, that 



232 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

whenever a child gets a new top, which spins better 
than his old one and so affords him greater pleasure, 
it will not be lon<2: before he has studied it criticallv, 
and he will ever afterward strive in every way to get this 
variety. And so it holds in respect of every new 
experience in the learner's life; he assimilates it to 
old systems, but he constantly expands the old com- 
plex as the new presents necessities or opportunities 
for adjustment which the old did not offer. And the 
very fact of its being new implies that it will exert 
a somewhat different effect upon the organism from 
the old. 

The most important form of assimilation occurs, 
of course, among idea-complexes themselves. We 
often speak as though this process of apperception 
P^ had to do alone with the reception and disposition of 
incoming impressions. When they are once in they 
remain quiescent where they are placed, except as they 
assist in their turn in the reception of new-comers. 
But such a view, it is hardly necessary to say, is highly 
erroneous. Many of us spend most of our time striv- 
ing to organize our ideas; for long periods we get no 
new impressions from without to which we give atten- 
tion. We endeavor to discover relationships between 
impressions and complex systems already established. 
I find myself now scrutinizing the elements of certain 
notions relating to the human mind, and I pass in time 
to other notions and do the same thing, that I may 
discover a bond of unity that I have never seen before 
because I did not have these elements in the focus of 
consciousness near together. But now when I have 
them in attention at practically the same moment I 
feel their similarity, and the one of less attachments 



APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 233 

gets assimilated into the system to which the other 
belongs. The greater part of my mental activity, per- 
haps, is concerned with this discovery of relationships^— — ' 
between ideas of all degrees of complexity and organ- 
izing them into systems, thus securing the solidarity 
of the inner world. This organization in certain 
minds — Aristotle's, Kant's, Spencer's, for example — 
attains a degree of complexity quite beyond the power 
of the average mortal to conceive, but the method of 
attaining it is always the same in all minds. 



§ 2. Sagacity in the Apperceptive Process. £ 

150. The success with which the efforts of any 
person striving to solve his particular problem will 
be rewarded will depend upon his keenness in discern- 
ing in it just the essential characteristics which deter- ,jj>--- 
mine its individuality. Of course anything may be 
viewed from a great many standpoints; various attri- 
butes may be taken account of, all of which are real, 
but some of which are not material to the purpose to 
which the thing is to be put at the time we are con- 
sidering it. This complex of characteristics must be 
broken up and just those elements selected that are 
really vital to the present needs. Or, to state the 
matter in the words ^ of James, 'Sve must be able to 
extract characters, not any characters but the right 
characters, for our conclusion. If we extract the 
wrong character, it will not lead to that conclusion. 
Here, then, is the difficulty; Hoiv are characters ex- 
tracted, and why does it require the advent of a geniics 

' Psvrholo^y, pp. 362. 363. 



234 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

in many cases before the fitting character is brought to 
light? Why cannot anybody reason as well as any- 
body else? Why does it need a Newton to notice 
the laws of the squares, a Darwin to notice the sur- 
vival of the fittest? To answer these questions we 
must begin a new research and see how our insight 
into facts naturally grows. 

^^All our knowledge at first is vague. When we say 
that a thing is vague we mean that it has no subdi- 
visions ab intra, nor precise limitations ab extra. But 
still all the forms of thought may apply to it. It may 
have unity, reality, externality, extent, and what not 
— thing-hood, in a word, but thing-hood only as a whole. 
In this vague way, probably, does the room appear 
to the babe who first begins to be conscious of it as 
something other than his moving nurse. It has no 
subdivisions in his mind, unless, perhaps, the window 
is able to attract his separate notice. In this vague 
way certainly does every entirely new experience 
appear to the adult. A library, a museum, a machine- 
shop, are mere confused wholes to the uninstructed, 
but the machinist, the antiquary, and the bookworm 
perhaps hardly notice the whole at all, so eager are 
they to pounce upon the details. Familiarity has 
in them bred discrimination. Such vague terms as 
* grass/ * mould,' and 'meat' do not exist for the 
botanist or the anatomist. They know too much 
about grasses, moulds, and muscles. A certain person 
said to Charles Kingsley, who was showing the dis- 
section of a caterpillar, wdth its exquisite viscera, 
'Why I thought it was nothing but skin and squash T 
A layman present at a shipwreck, a battle, or a fire is 
helpless. Discrimination has been so little awakened 



APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 235 

in him by experience that his consciousness leaves no 
single point of the complex situation accented and 
standing out for him to begin to act upon. But the 
sailor, the fireman, and the general know directly at 
what corner to take up the business. They 'see 
into the situation' — that is, they analyze it — with 
their first glance. It is full of delicately differenced 
ingredients, which their education has little by little 
brought to their consciousness, but of w^hich the novice 
gains no clear idea." 

151. But this power of anah^zing, this sagacity, * 
depends primarily^ upon experience and conforms 
to the principle of apperception. The ornithologist 
discerns the essential characteristics in birds in order 
that he may classify them. The farmer discerns just the 
characteristics in his corn and potatoes which indicate 
when he should cultivate them. The physician dis- 
cerns just the manifestations of his disease which 
indicate what the difficulty is. And in all these in- 
stances the ability to pick out the essential thing is 
dependent upon large experience in which just the 
essential things have been frequently observed and 

^ I say primarily, for without doubt the power of co-ordinat- 
ing attention upon a situation has much to do with deter- 
mining one's ability to deal with it, and this power will doubt- 
less be different in degree in two persons, even though they 
have had the same experiences. It is probable that expe- 
rience is more active in an apperceptive way in some persons 
than in others, although really the scatter-brains cannot be 
said to have experience in the true sense. Again, individuals 
doubtless differ with respect to the groups of ideas that are most 
persistent and lively, this difference being due in some cases to 
heredity and in others to variation. For example, one person 
may be visual-minded, another auditory-minded, one may be 
mathematically-minded, another musically-minded, and so on. 



236 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

appreciated.^ For a novice, one thing is as essential 
as another, and the whole is a confused, indefinite, 
ill-defined aggregate; but the expert has already seen 
the essential characteristics in a certain bird, or in a 
certain disease, or in a certain mechanical situation, 
or in a certain business situation, and he can detect 
them now and ignore irrelevant matters which obstruct 
the vision of the ignorant in these fields, though they 
may have the learning of Solomon in all things else.^ 
In fine, one can see into a complex situation now if 
he has seen into something like it before, which implies 
that he has seen into, in all this means, the elemientary 
situations of which this complex one is, so to speak, con- 
structed. A problem can be resolved deliberately 
only when the factors entering into it have been pre- 
viously handled with success. 

152. Suppose a civil engineer and a layman to be 

^ "The story is told among the students of Professor Bell, of 
Edinburgh, who, as everybody knows, is the original of Sher- 
lock Holmes, that he one day astonished his students by de- 
claring that a patient who had just come to the Infirmary, 
and whom none of the students, not even the professor him- 
self, had ever seen before, was a non-commissioned officer, 
lately pensioned off, after serving some time in a certain island 
in the West Indies, The age of the man, his bearing, the 
angle at which he wore his hat, certain peculiarities of his 
civilian dress, accounted for the profession and rank of the 
patient; the West Indies and the certain island were indi- 
cated by the marks of the bite of a certain insect which is 
found only in that island. It is obvious that however much 
the students had observed these marks they never could have 
guessed the island apart from this very special bit of knowl- 
edge." — Adams, op. cit., pp. 143, 144. 

^ See an interesting example of the principle here involved 
given by Max Miiller, Science of Thought, p. 8. 



APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 237 

standing on the bank of a river, each desiring to throw a 
bridge across it. The former at once sees his way 
tlirough his problem; the present situation awakens 
within him many remembrances of similar situations 
to which he has previously adjusted himself, and 
which spring forward to guide his action in the present. 
But the layman is helpless. Unlike his companion 
he has no equipment in the way of images, in all 
this term implies, of styles of bridges, various materi- 
als, and the modes of organizing them into an organic 
whole so as to fit into a given situation. In the expert's 
mind there are completed wholes, rivers and bridges, 
many of them, and the river before him simply slips 
into, as it were, the place of one already there, and 
becomes a part of a pre-existing whole, and he is ready 
to work out the other part as he has done on previous 
occasions. No matter what adjustments he may 
have made to other phases of his environment, if they 
do not relate intimately to the things before him 
they will be of little value to him now. So the botanist 
sees much in the plant at his feet because he has had 
such intimate and vital association with it in the past 
that now as he walks abroad every plant he sees fits into 
some plant pattern or system, and so acquires a mean- 
ing. But the mathematician, or the linguist, or the 
minister, or the law3^er, who has not had the botanist's 
experience would, of course, not have his power of 
dealing with the plant world. On the other hand, 
the botanist would stand confounded before a page 
of figures indicating operations in higher mathematics, 
while the mathematician would instantly construct 
the figure which these denoted, quickly comprehending 
the spacial or time relations which they symbolized, 



238 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

A physician is helpless enough before a room full of 
fort}^ healthy children needing to be taught; the infi- 
nite variety of data, all running ea9>ily into explanatory 
and reactive systems in the teacher's mind, utterly 
bewilder the man of medicine; while the teacher is 
equally incompetent in the presence of a man requiring 
medical or surgical treatment. And the principle is 
universal.^ 

^ As the expert in anatomy can take a bit of bone and con- 
struct the animal from which it came, so the expert in any field 
can take a single fact in that field and construct the complex 
situation of which it is always a part. Adams quotes (op. cit., 
pp. 158-160) Steinthal to the effect that, "In a railway- 
carriage compartment sit in lively conversation half a dozen 
persons totally unacquainted with each other. It is a matter 
of regret that one of the company must get out at the next 
station. Another remarks that he particularly likes such a 
meeting with totally unknown folks, and that he never either 
asks who or what his travelling companions may be, or tells 
on such an occasion who or what he himself is. Thereupon 
one of the company says if the others will not say what 
they are, he will pledge himself to find out, if only every one 
will answer him a quite irrelevant question. This was agreed 
to. Taking five leaves from his note-book, he wrote a ques- 
tion, and handed one to each of his companions, with the 
request to write the answer upon it. After they had given 
him back the sheets, he said, as soon as he had read an an- 
swer, and without reflection, to one, 'you are a scientist'; to 
another, '3'ou are a soldier'; to a third, ' j^'ou are a philolo- 
gist'; to the fourth, 'you are a political writer'; to the 
fifth, 'you are a farmer.' All admitted that he was right. 
Then he got out and left the five behind. Each wanted to 
know what question the other had got, and behold one and the 
same question had been proposed to all. It ran — 

" What being itself destroys what it has brought forth? 

" To this the scientist had answered, Vital force; the soldier, 
War; the philologist, Kronos; the writer, Revolution; the farmer, 
A boar." 



APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 239 



§ 3. Syllogistic Reasoning. 

153. We have reached the conclusion then that in 
every new situation one searches for characteristics 
which he has found in situations to which he has learned 
to adjust himself; and common-sense psychology 
maintains that this is attained through the process 
of deductive reason. AVhen one is confronted by any 
situation, it is said, he will gather up all of his experi- 
ence relating to it and state it in the form of a propo- 
sition; as, using the classical example — Ma7i is mortal. 
Then he identifies the present man, Socrates, with the 
general notion, 7nan; then he concludes that what is 
true of all men must be true of any one m.an as Socrates. 
He ''subsumes the particular under the general/' 
says the logician, and he knows that what is true of 
the general must be true of all things included therein. 
But enough has been said already to show that in his 
adjustments one does not make up his mind what to do 
in any situation in a syllogistic fashion, except as we 
view the matter ab extra, when we think we can dis- 
cern stages through which his thought must have 
passed before reaching its terminus.* A logical, formal 
analysis of reaction processes makes explicit what is 
but implicit in all such processes. It makes parts and 
stages and sequences in a phenomenon that is a unity, 
that is indivisible, that can not be said to have tem- 
poral sequences at all. 

154. To illustrate, let us see (what perhaps has been 
already seen in principle) what actually occurs when a 
year's old child sees his mother and tries to get to her. 

» Cf. Ward, op. cit., p. 77. 



240 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

The moment she appears within the range of vision 
there are set agoing in the child activities which have 
brought him happiness in the past. Old experience 
reacts upon this new datum to interpret it, to give it 
meaning, and to put the organism in right relation 
toward it. If one confines his attention to the purely 
intellectual part of the process he will find that it con- 
sists in first an impression from without awakening 
an image of some sort which it resembles, or with w-hich 
it has been connected in some way in experience; and 
then this image arouses a train of others with which it 
is associated by contiguity (using the term in a general 
way here) and this results in the new-comer getting 
properly placed in experience.^ 

When one looks at the matter from the genetic 
/Standpoint he sees that in the individual's reasoning 
upon any subject there are processes w^hich suggest 
the syllogism. When the child is becoming acquainted 
with any object or situation he passes through a period 
where he has some difficulty in placing or interpreting 
it readily. You can see him looking at it and apparently 
studying it out. Some say that when he does this he 
is consciously constructing his syllogisms, and trying 
to get his conclusions therefrom; w^hen he hesitates 
about making friends wdth a strange man, and studies 
him critically, as is the way of children, he is gathering 
up all his experiences with men into major premises, 
then presenting the man before him in a series of 
minor premises, and drawing his conclusions. If 

* See Ziehen, Physiological Psychology, chaps. 8, 9, 10; 
and especially Binet, Psychology of Reasoning, translated 
by Whyte, for a detailed exposition of this method of stating 
the view presented above. 



APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 241 

most of the reasoner's conclusions indicate that the 
stranger is a good man, he will then decide to trust 
him; if his conclusions point in the opposite direction 
he will keep away from him. It is acknowledged 
that this syllogizing is not conscious, especially as 
the child gets better acquainted with this man, for 
then as soon as he sees him he takes a certain charac- 
teristic attitude toward him. In this latter case all 
the steps are taken so easily and quickly that we are 
unable to mark them off from each other; but still it 
is said the syllogism is implicit if not explicit in all this 
reasoning. 

But we can explain the phenomena of the mental 
life more satisfactorily on the principle stated above. 
When the child deliberates before a situation — when 
he studies it — he is simply trying to get some sign from 
it that will talty wdth the signs of situations to which 
he has previously adjusted himself. This studying 
attitude is produced largely automatically. Given a 
situation of some familiarity, but yet the individual 
can not determine how he should react upon it, and he 
will give his attention to it in a sort of reflex way. 
This is essential, of course, in order to get from it the 
stimulations necessary in order to determine what 
to do with it. When the child hesitates in going to 
the strange man he is lacking evidence that this man 
will treat him as his father does. The resemblance 
to the father is not strong enough to overcome the 
instinctive fear incited by any strange object. The 
word "strange" implies that the object does not pre- 
sent stimidi like familiar objects. If it has some 
resemblance to things that are known, it has other 
characteristics that do not accord with anything that 



242 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

has been experienced; and as long as there is this 
condition of uncertainty the individual will assume 
the attentive attitude in order that he may expose 
himself to all possible stinmlations from the thing 
that he does not know w^hat to do with. 

To take an instance from the m^ore complex affairs 
of life — when a young man comes to college from a 
home or a community where he has been taught that 
dancing is evil, and finds all his classmates dancing, 
and he is debating mth himself whether he ought to 
do it, he is regarding the situation in the light not only 
of the teachings of his own home but of other homes 
and other communities and of literature and history; 
and as long as he is uncertain, he cannot put the ques- 
tion aside — he must keep the attentive attitude until 
some certain course of action seems to be indorsed. 
If he finds sufficient warrant in the data he has gained 
from history and literature and other sources to over- 
come the objections of his parents, he will dance. If 
he cannot do it the paternal training will prevail; 
but in any event there will be some conflict. The 
desire to assimilate himself with his environment will 
be urging him on, but the home training will tend to 
inhibit him, and he will feel strain and tension until 
he gets himself readjusted to the new. 

155. Doubt arises, of course, when there is conflict 
in the advice which various experiences give regarding 
the conduct befitting j^resent circumstances. This 
line of experiences counsels one kind of action, while 
another line suggests a different course, and the opposing 
suggestions and impulses inhibit one another. Doubt 
is brought on, too, when the present situation is so 
obscure that the cliild cannot discern clearlv its main 



APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 243 

qualities, or when it presents prominent character- 
istics that he has not seen in the things he has adjusted 
himself to previously, while presenting others that 
seem familiar. These cases are illustrated admirably 
in the lives of children when they are brought in contact 
wdth strange people, or carried to strange cities where 
there is no clear resemblance to the corresponding 
things at home, the possibilities of which they have 
learned. A child will stand before a stranger, to 
return to our example, halting between running to 
him and running away from him; his face shows the 
struggle going on within between trust and distrust. 
Now he discerns characteristics which, in the people 
with whom he is familiar, have denoted disagreeable 
traits; now he detects others which in some people 
that he knows have stood for kindliness and sympath}^ 
What will the child do then in his predicament? Per- 
haps he will see some characteristic of facial expres- 
sion, or bodity movement, or tone of voice, which was 
recently exhibited by the person who whipped him, 
and he will flee to his father. Perhaps the expression 
he sees on the face of some bystander mil determine 
his action. Possibly the physical environment will 
tend to make his trust or suspicion stronger, or there 
may be various other factors which enter into his delib- 
erations. But, however this may be, the motive for 
his halting is that his past experience gives him con- 
flicting counsels regarding his action in the present. 

156. Then there is the other form of reason which 
educational theory has laid so much stress upon — 
that Avhich is concerned with inferring a continuous 
order of things from observing a few individual instances. 
We may take for illustration the classic example of 



244 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

the rising of the sun. The child soon comes to feel 
that the sun will rise every morning, and the logician 
says that in arriving at this conviction he passes through 
a process of argument something like the following: 
the sun has risen every morning since I was born; 
what has been true of these mornings will be true of 
all mornings; therefore the sun will rise every morn- 
ing in the future. Now, most of the child's life is, 
of course, expectant, anticipatory in a certain sense. 
He believes that if he behaves himself in a particular 
way his father will treat him in a certain manner, 
his mother in a certain other manner, and his playmate 
in a still different manner. He knows that if he touches 
the stove it will burn him, if he pulls the cat's tail she 
wall scratch him, and so on ad libitum. How does he 
come to pre-adjust himself in this manner to situations? 
Is this a form of assimilation, of adjustment, to future 
situations in the light of past experience? What else 
can it be? In the words of Stanley,^ '4t is plain, 
indeed, that if the future is to be apprehended at all, 
it must be in terms of the past. To interpret the 
unknown and unexperienced, to conceive it in any 
manner, the mind must use the terms of experience. 
Even the rapt dreams of the mystic is a piece-work of 
experience. Now, experience is itself a consolidation 
of elements, a series of groupings, established by fre- 
quent coalitions; hence it follows from the nature of 
experience that the more frequently an event occurs 
with certain associations, the more strongly we expect 
it to occur." 

Future events are in a sense but deferred present 

» Mind, new series. Vol. XV., p. 363, " The Evolution of In- 
ductive Thought." 



APPERCEPTION AS THE ESSENTIAL PROCESS. 245 

events ; in reacting to them they really become present 
in an ideal way, and are dealt with as though they were 
present in a concrete way. When I think of the sun 
rising in the future, what does the content of conscious- 
ness at the moment relate to? To the experiences I 
have had with the sun, of course; and my attitude 
will be just that which experience has developed — 
that is, I will believe the sun will rise next year or a 
hundred j^ears hence. I may, of course, be able to 
see other events that will make the first one different 
from what it was in times past; but even here I am 
expecting these latter events to act as they previously 
have done and to the same effect, which will modify the 
former events. Or again, as I look forward, and am 
conscious of a certain amount of time elapsing before 
the event occurs, my fears and my desires tend to make 
a particular view of the thing prominent. I will see it 
happening or not happening according as my emo- 
tional state makes this or that mental complex supreme. 
To be optimistic means that the things I see in the 
future are reacted upon by complexes of experiences 
that are associated with a predominantly pleasant 
mood; to be pessimistic means that future events, 
contemplated ideally, are reacted upon by complexes 
of experience that have a predominantly unpleasant 
mood; but in any case what happens in inductive 
reasoning is the taking of an attitude toward coming 
events in the light of past experience. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE- 

§ I. Exposition of the Doctrine. 

157. The doctrine that particular experience gives 
power of adjustment to particular situations only and 
not to all sorts of situations has not in the past been 
made the basis of educational theory to an}^ great 
extent; but rather one quite contrasted to it has been 
employed. It has been held that it is possible to develop 
by formal exercise a strength of mind, a power or 
vigor or vitality, a sharpness or keenness which may 
be put to good use in any emergency. Like the mus- 
cles the mind as a whole grows and acquires strength 
and capacity in every act it performs. Special kinds 
of action, as solving problems in cube root, mil develop 
skill in dealing with every situation in which one is 
placed, as in deciding the merits of the free-trade con- 
troversy, for example. If a boy is to become a lawyer, 
to illustrate, it is maintained that he will need to be 
good at reasoning, for one thing; then in his preparatoiy 
training this "faculty^' must be disciplined by some 
sort of material, it makes little difference what, only 
so that the exercise is secured. The special offices 
which men will fill in mature life, the special obliga- 
tions which they will assume, are not to be taken 
account of sp^'^ially in the school. No matter what 

246 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 247 

they will be called upon severally to do they will stand 
in need of efficient mental action — ready perception, 
faithful memory, accurate reason — and they must be 
practised in these ways upon whatever stuff can be 
conveniently got together for the purpose. Adams 
mentions^ an old book on Algebra that the author 
styled "The Whetstone of Witte," evidently believing 
that this subject makes a very good grindstone for 
sharpening the faculties, and almost every subject 
of instruction has been and is lauded by its devotees 
for a like reason. 

158. This doctrine grows naturally out of the con- 
ception of living things which people form in their 
unreflective contact with the world. They see, as they 
think, that muscles gain strength through vigorous 
exercise; they cite the blacksmith's strong right arm 
as evidence. And the reverse of this seems also to be 
true; inactive muscles become puny and ineffective. 
Moreover, muscular strength gained by work of any 
sort may apparently be employed without loss in every 
kind of muscular work, however different from that 
in the doing of which the muscles were developed. 
If I go into a gymnasium and tone up my biceps by 
the use of dumb-bells, the strength I thus acquire 
may be utilized in whatever way I choose in the affairs 
of life — in pitching hay, in batting a ball, or in pugil- 
istic events. The body is thus a sort of reservoir of 
energy; whenever and however any is generated it 
flows into this reservoir and may be drawn upon for 
every purpose. 

People then pass on in their speculations from things 
physical to things mental, and say that the mind grows 

Wp. cit., p. 110. 



248 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

as the muscles do; that it accumulates force in the 
same way, and expends it on the same principles. Men- 
tal work of any kind develops a fund of mental power, 
skill, keenness, force, or whatever it should be called, 
that may be utilized for the performance of any task. 
Fouillee voices the current opinion of the Disciplinari- 
ans when he says,^ — ''We can learn to build a railway 
by rule of thumb, but those who invented railways did 
so by the force of the intellectual power they had received; 
it is therefore intellectual force that we nmst aim at 
developing."^ This author lays great stress in all his 
educational theorizing upon the development of the 
form or method of mental action. It is not the con- 
tent of the mind that should concern us but its /onn. 
He does not wish to give the pupil in the school experi- 
ence with the special things with, which he must deal 
in real life. He cares for the mode of procedure, the 
way of attacking things which can be attained, he thinks, 
by a regimen of formal training. 

' § 2. The Doctrine in the Light of Every-day 

Experience. 

159. The physiological principle upon which the 
doctrine of formal discipline is based is seen upon 
examination not to be quite true as it is generally 
stated. Muscular activity which is concerned with 
particular employments and undertakings does not 
beget a power that can be expended without loss in 
the accomplishment of any task whatsoever. The 
oarsman cannot turn all the energy he develops in 

1 Oj). ciL, p. 38. 

* The italics are mine. 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 249 

rowing to good account in pitching hay or puUing 
beans or shoeing a horse or carrying a hod on his shoul- 
der. The pugihst cannot employ without loss in 
another form of occupation the brawn gained in his 
training. No particular form of muscular activity, 
in short, can be made to yield power that can be util- 
ized in other ways without some waste. And w"hy? 
Because rowing, for example, calls into play in defi- 
nite combinations muscles and their energizing nerve 
centres which are not co-ordinated in precisely this 
way in any different activity.^ Besides, looking at 
the matter neurologically, the cerebral processes 
behind every action become ever more facile with 
repetition. Paths of discharge are established, and 
energy passes along them ever more readily, so that 
less and less escapes by the way into channels not in 
the system.^ And the outcome is that this special 

^ Students who have passed much of their lives out of doors 
in manual labor on a farm in a fiat prairie country often come 
to the University of Wisconsin, where they are compelled to 
climb a hill to attend their classes, and it takes a considerable 
period for their lungs and muscles to become adapted to 
the changed conditions. Recently I spent one month in the 
mountains of Utah, tramping with men who had always been 
climbing mountains. In outward appearance I would be 
thought the hardiest of any of the group, but any one of them 
would ''walk me off my legs" in two hours. Running around 
all day on flat ground after a golf ball, or a plough even, will not 
put one in perfect condition for mountaineering." 

^ Cf . the following : Baldwin, Mental Development, Methods 
and Processes, chap. 5; Bair, Development of Voluntary Con- 
trol, Psychological Review, Vol. VIII., p. 474, September, 
1901; Bain, Emotions and Will, pp. 304 et. seq.; Spencer, 
Psychology, Vol. I., pp. 496 et. seq.; Sully, The Human Mind, 
Vol. II., pp. 189 et. seq.; Kirkpatrick, Development of Vol- 
untary Movement, Psychological Review, Vol. VI. 



/^ 



250 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

activity becomes easier mth practice and more and 
more can be accomplished through it as time goes on. 
Practice of a special kind gives increase of power of a 
special kind, that is to say. But now, a new art or 
dexterity demanding a new set of muscular co-ordina- 
tions, and requiring the development of new cerebral 
correlations and processes, cannot profit greatly by 
the skill gained in the first activity, for it cannot make 
use of the mechanisms by means of which the former 
art, strength, and facility w^ere obtained. Particular 
forms of exercise in this view, then, are seen to have 
special and not general value except in a limited sense; 
to give power only in the special fields in w^hich the 
exercise has been gained, and not in all fields indiffer- 
ently except without great loss. 

The point is that the standard of efficiency in mus- 
cular action is not so much one of brute strength as 
of precise correlation, which achieves any task with 
the least wear and tear. And every performance has 
its characteristic complex of co-ordinations, muscu- 
lar and neural, which gets established so that it can 
function in an automatic way only upon continual 
repetition in precisely the same maimer every time. 
So that the skill which one develops in drilling on a 
certain activity is apt to prove of relatively little ad- 
vantage in emergencies requiring new correlations. 
Of course, mere brawn, as people use the term, is a sort 
of substrate of all muscular pursuits, and it can always 
be utilized in a certain measure, no matter from what 
source it is derived. So ro^\ing increases lung capac- 
ity, among other things, and a sprinter stands much 
in need of wind, so that if an oarsman should take to 
the track his experience on the water would be of some 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 251 

assistance; but still, and this is the crux of the matter, 
the policy of developing skill in running by practice 
in boating would be exceedingly bad economy. There 
are a few physiological effects of any form of exercise 
that would come in handy in any other; but again 
there are some results from using the oars, for instance, 
that would contribute nothing of value in sprinting 
or boxing. 

160. Those who profess to believe in the virtues of 
formal mental discipline are still not willing to carry 
it to its logical conclusions. They will not say that 
any particular sort of mental activity will benefit the 
mind on every side. They maintain rather that the 
training of perception in any direction improves the 
power of perception in every direction, but not the 
power of reason, or memory, or imagination. Here 
the theory that all possible mental functions are bene- 
fited in the same degree by any variety of experience is 
abandoned, and it is implied that there are various 
departments, as it were, to the mind, from each of 
which may be produced special articles of mental 
merchandise according to the needs of the moment. 
We cannot draft the power developed by exercising 
the perceiving faculty, for instance, into the service 
of the remembering faculty; nor can power of memory 
be utilized in carrying forward reason or imagination. 
And the development of the intellectual faculties 
does not exert great influence upon the emotional life. 
Love increases only by being called freely into action; 
reasoning in geometry will not stimulate it. Indeed 
one often hears the Disciplinarians say that the undue 
exercise of the intellectual parts of the mind dwarfs the 
emotional and spiritual powers. Instead, then, of 



k' 



252 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

particular experience giving strength to every faculty 
it often has exactly the opposite effect — it weakens 
certain powers. Love for all things though is culti- 
vated by love expressed for some particular thing, 
say the formalists; but loving much does not nourish m 
hope or reverence, or courage; much less anger or fi 
envy or pride. These different aspects of the soul 
must be developed by special and appropriate kinds 
of experience. The formalist cannot fail to see in 
concrete life that in a given situation the mind func- 
tions in a way appropriate thereto in perceiving or 
reasoning or remembering or loving or hating, while f 
under other circumstances it conducts itself in a differ- ' 
ent manner according to the needs of the organism. > 
And no matter how much training one has had in deal- 
ing with a special kind of situation, as in mastering 
Greek grammar, he is not helped much, if any, by vir- 
tue of this experience alone when he is called upon, 
to decide how a dependent wife or child or parents 
shall be cared for.^ 

In the affairs of daily life people have always ob-' 
served that competency in one field does not assure, 
keenness in all fields.^ There comes to mind the classic^ 



$ 



* Since the above was written I have read an article b 
Thotndyke and Woodworth (Psychological Review, Vol. VHI 
p. 247, May, 1901), giving the results of experiments to de- 
termine the ''Influence of Improvement in One Mental Func- 
tion upon the Efficiency of Other Functions," and they fully 
indorse the principle set forth above. I quote this significant 
sentence, ''The Mind is ... on its dynamic side a machine 
for making particular reactions to particular situations." 

2 If the theorj'- were true that perceiving in one field makes 
observation keener for everything, then the study of psychol- 
ogy, requiring such sharp vision, ought to result in filling one's 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 253 

example of Napoleon discharging La Place from his 
cabinet on account of inefficiency, although the emi- 
nent mathematician possessed one of the ''strongest'^ 
minds of his age. Hinsdale quotes^ Macaulay on the 
possibility of turning legal acumen to account in hand- 
ling even closely related subjects. In speaking of 
lawyers, he says that, ''Their legal arguments are 
intellectual prodigies, abounding with the happies* 
analogies and most refined distinctions. The princi* 
pies of their arbitrary science being once admitted, 
the statute-book and the reports being assumed as 
the foundations of reasoning, these men must be al- 
.owed to be perfect masters of logic. But if a ques- 
tion arises as to the postulates on which their whole 
ogic rests, if they are called upon to vindicate the 
undamental maxims of that system w^hich they have 

lind with accurate percepts of all things with which he has daily 
itercourse. Adams expresses (op. cit., p. 136) his view of tlie mat- 
3r in the following fashion: ^*A whole class of students of psy- 
hology has been reduced to the most shamefaced confusion 
hen suddenly asked to vmXe down, without time for investi- 
ition, the answer to the question: 'How many buttons have 
ou on your waistcoat?' This state of matters is greatly 
) be deplored, and a certain section of practical educationists 
ve us many opportunities to grieve over it. When a class 
in school has been floored by some such simple question as, 
*'Vith which foot do you usually begin to walk?' or, 'At which 
end does a recumbent cow begin to rise?' those practical edu- 
cationalists turn to the teacher, and, with a deprecatory 
smile, ask if it would not be better to pay a little more atten- 
tion to the 'observing faculties' of the pupils. (It is to be 
noted that the term 'practical' is used here in a peculiar 
sense.) " Cf. Bolton, Training in Observation, Journal of Peda- 
gogy, Jan., 1901, pp. 227-237; also Thorndyke and Woodworth, 
op. cit., p. 249. 

* Studies in Education, p. 53. 



254 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

passed their lives in studying, these very men often 
talk the language of savages or of children.'' 

161. Keenness then is a special matter; it can be 
put to good use only in the special situations in which 
it is developed. The mathematician will be keen in 
his way but not of necessity in every way. Practi- 
cally speaking, he can see keenly in a present situation 
provided he has had much luminous experience wdth 
similar situations ; he can remember well things that are 
concerned with this special kind of activity, because 
they are essential to the continuance thereof; they are 
used in the adaptive process. He can discern accu- 
rately the relations between things in this field because 
his mind has operated in this way heretofore while he 
w^as becoming a mathematician. It has become 
organized with reference to this phase of the environ- 
ment, where peculiar relations must be perceived in 
order that adjustment may occur at all. 

The principle is w^ll illustrated in the training of 
the lawyer (to mention him again) who is disciplined 
in weighing circumstantial evidence of a certain special 
character, — ''an artificial thing created by legislation 
or custom, with the object of preventing the minds 
of the jury — presumably a body of untrained and 
unlearned men — from being confused or led astray. 
Moreover, they are only familiar with its use in one 
very narrow field — human conduct under one set of 
social conditions. For example, a lawyer might be a 
very good judge of circumstantial evidence in America, 
and a very poor one in India or China; he might have 
a keen eye for the probable or improbable in a New 
England village, and none at all in a Prussian bar- 
rack. A wild Indian will, owing to prolonged obser- 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 255 

vation and great acuteness of all the senses, tell by a 
simple inspection of grass or leaf-covered ground, on 
which a scholar will perceive nothing unusual what- 
ever, that a man has recently passed over it. He 
will tell whether he was walking or running, w^hether 
he carried a burden, whether he was young or old, 
and how long ago and at what hour of the day he went 
by. He reaches all his conclusions by circumstantial 
evidence of practically the same character as that 
used by the geologist, though he knows nothing about 
formal logic or the process of induction." ^ 

Tliis principle is seen to be at the bottom of much 
of the phenomena of our daily lives. Put out into 
the world a grammarian of great attainments in his 
own specialty, and observe his reactions upon it; 
what does he see keenly? Not the aesthetic values of 

^ Hinsdale, op. ciL, pp. 53, 54. 

The experiences of ''Sherlock Holmes" as a detective show 
that ability here depends upon special kind of knowledge in- 
stead of formal reasoning power. *'It was not," Adams says, 
"because Holmes could reason backwards that he beat the 
ordinary Scotland Yard detectives. When one of them, Les- 
trade, saw the letters R-A-C-H-E- traced in blood upon the 
Wall, the only idea that rose above the threshold of his con- 
sciousness was the word Rachel, and he at once came to the 
conclusion that a woman of that name had something to do 
vnth the crime, and proceeded to make a hypothesis that 
would fit into this fact. He reasoned backwards as easily and 
as accurately as Holmes himself, the only difference being 
that Holmes's apperception mass contained the German word 
Rache, which means revenge. Holmes was right, Lestrade 
was wrong; but it was not a matter of knowledge. Like 
Bain's wild beast, Lestrade sprang upon Rachel, because 
Rache did not present itself." — The Herbartian Psychology 
Applied to Education, pp. 149, 150. 



256 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

objects which the artist would detect; not charac- 
teristics in a plant which would attract the botanist; 
not the activities of human beings which the psycholo- 
gist would perceive; not the happenings in trade 
circles which the merchant would have in mind; not 
the evidences of disease which would engage the atten- 
tion of the physician. No, he would be quite indif- 
ferent to all these phenomena, and they might almost 
as well be non-existent so far as he is concerned. 

Of course no grammarian would be utterly uncon- 
scious of these other things, because no one could be 
just a grammarian and nothing else; his early train- 
ing, the exigencies of daily life, his contact with people 
who have different interests, — ^these even if he had no 
explicit training in other directions would make him 
something more than a mere specialist. But the more 
his experience has been limited to grammatical situations 
the more will he ignore other aspects of the world; 
and the principle holds for the specialist in every sub- 
ject. The minister sees things in his way, the teacher 
in his way, the anarchist in his way, and the king in 
his way. Each may be marvellously keen in his 
special line, but be blind as a bat in apprehending 
truths which other men see clearly enough. 

§ 3. The Development of Force by Formal Discipline. 

162. The ambition of formalists always is to ''de- 
velop mental force." But what is mental force? 
and how is it generated? It may be regarded from 
one standpoint as referring to endurance in labor, 
to long-sustained effort. In this view we think of 
the capacity to do much work without injury, the 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE- 257 

ability to continue at a task for a long period without 
fatigue; and this matter relates to the production 
and economic expenditure of neural energy in the 
support of the perceiving, remembering, reasoning, 
and other mental processes. From another standpoint 
mental force may be considered as referring to the 
efficiency of the mind as an instrument of adaptation 
to its readiness and keenness and trustworthiness in 
deaUng ^ith the things which are presented to it, — 
the rehabihty of memory, the accuracy and subtlety 
of reason, the freedom of imagination, the vigor of 
will, the buoyancy of hope, the faithfulness of con- 
science. Still again, we may think of mental power 
as denoting a body of habits which should be mani- 
fested in the varied activities of daily living — habits 
of persistence in the performance of duty, of attention 
to uninteresting tasks, of critical study of all situa- 
tions- before reacting upon them, of suspended judg- 
ment until all the evidence is in, — those habits which 
w^e all feel are requisite for anything like success in 
the business of life. 

Can these ends, all of which are of the utmost conse- 
quence in education, be attained by formal training? 
Can power in any sense in which the term may be / 
understood be generated in doing one thing and em- 
ployed with equal success and advantage in doing 
something different? It is well understood now that 
mental activity utilizes cerebral energy, and when the 
supply is reduced beyond a certain point fatigue ensues, 
the machine runs down,^ so that it is of vital impor- 
tance that a good stock of nervous force be kept always 
on tap for the support of vigorous mental action. 

^ See my Aspects of Mental Economy, chap. 1. 



258 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

But how is cerebral energy generated? The neu- 
rologist tells us that it is produced through the exercise 
of cerebral cells,^ which increases both the anabolic 
and catabolic processes from which force is derived. 
But it must be remembered that, for the most part 
at any rate, particular mental activities occur in par- 
ticular departments of the cerebral cortex,^ so that 

1 Cf. Donaldson, op. cit., chap, on Education of the Central 
Nervous System. See my Bulletin, op. cit., for a detailed 
treatment of the subject. 

2 The doctrine of Localization of Function is accepted, I 
think, by all scientists. The literature of the subject is very 
extensive, but see Donaldson, op. cit., chap, on Localization 
of Function, for a statement of the modern view; also Flech- 
sig, op. cit. Munk, Ferrier, Horsley, Schafer, and others have 
contributed experimenial evidence corroborating the theory 
in its fundamental features at any rate. Just to what extent 
and in what regions the higher mental activities are localized 
are matters of dispute, but pathological evidence seems to 
show that linguistic, musical, mathematical and certain other 
functions are localized in special areas. Cases, as the cele- 
brated Blind Tom, are on record where individuals were prac- 
ticall}^ idiots in everything but musical ability. Baldwin 
(Mental Development, Methods and Processes, p. 440) gives 
some suggestive facts bearing upon this general topic, and so 
does Grant Allen, Vol. III., p. 157. Wyllie (on the Faculty 
of Speech, part 3) and Bateman (Aphasia and the Locali- 
zation of the Cerebral Speech INIechanism), have sho^^Ti that 
the mind may be intact in most of its operations, but lose the 
power of speech or writing or understanding language. One 
reads every now and again of an arithmetical prodigy, all of 
wdiose forces seem to be expressed in the direction of this 
special activity. The superintendent of the school for the 
feeble-minded at Chippewa Falls, Wis., has pointed out to me 
inmates who were normal in all but some one characteristic, 
and he believes .that this is due to some defect in a particular 
region of the brain. It should be added that he thinks a de- 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 259 

not all cells are stimulated in every psychic act; and 
the question which concerns us is whether the energy- 
generating capacities of one area which has been duly 
exercised can on occasion be called into requisition to 
help out neighboring regions which have lain dormant 
in the meantime. 

The experiences of daily life ought to give us data 
relating to this subject, if we can only interpret them 
aright. Can one employ, without loss, energy gen- 
erated by physical exercise in the support of mental 
activity, and vice versa? Are people who excel in 
physical endurance equally superior in mental endur- 
ance? Is the blacksmith capable of applying himself 
to difficult book work for long periods? Is the scholar, 
on the other hand, the man who has been generating 
and utilizing his energy in thinking, able to do a hard 
day's work at the forge or in the hayfield? Think of 
Plato or Aristotle or Kant or Herbert Spencer carry- 
ing a hod or swinging a sledge all day! I am not 
speaking now of exercise in the sense in which this term 
is commonly used. Doubtless a certain measure of 
motor activity favors mental action, for without it 
the organism gets out of repair, and its energy-gen- 
erating capacities are reduced. But we must keep in 
mind the laborer, who can apply himself to hard man- 
ual work for ten hours a day year in and year out, — 
can he use his energies in doing the scholar's work, or 
the scholar use his energies effectively in doing the 
laborer's work? No, the man who has been working 
with his muscles can now work much more easily and 
effectively with them than mth his mind; while the 

feet in any cerebral area tends to "weaken" the whole struc- 
ture. 



260 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

one who has been consuming all his energies in the 
elaboration of ideas can continue to so employ them 
more advantageously than in using a hoe or shovel 
or axe. Students who come to the university from 
the farm say that it takes a considerable period to get 
the energy which has been energizing muscles shunted 
into other channels. So, too, when a man who has 
been excellent in his studies leaves the university for 
an agricultural life, does it not take him some weeks 
to become adapted to muscular pursuits? 

163. What is thus seen to be true regarding the 
employment of energy derived from physical activity 
for the support of mental effort, and the converse, 
X must hold to some extent at least, in respect of the 
transference of force developed in the production of 
one kind of mental labor to another of a different sort. 
Mental activity in a certain field, we must suppose, 
leads to the organization of the parts of the cerebral 
mechanism involved. It opens up connections be- 
tween stations in the given circuit, and continued 
exercise renders the transit from one point to another 
ever more easy and expeditious. The study of mathe- 
matics, for instance, involves, speaking neurologically, 
the development of those central nervous processes 
that are connected with, adjustment to the quantita- 
tive environment. Such study reduces resistance to 
the passage of energy along the associative highways 
which ramify through the mathematical field, connect- 
ing impressions together, and relating the whole to 
the appropriate reactive system. That is to say, the 
more mathematical thinking one does, the oftener he 
adapts himself to the quantitative environment in 
either an ideal or motor way, the more easily he can 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 261 

do so in the future in terms of energy required, and 
the more he can accompUsh for a given amount of 
energy expended. 

This neurological view is certainly borne out by the 
phenomena of daily life. We observe a boy learning 
the elements of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, 
and struggling hard over his tasks. A vast amount 
of energ}^ is expended in accomplishing little, for the 
reason that his thought does not go straight to the 
point ;^ and there is besides a good deal of resistance 
to be overcome in everything that is done because 
there are so many new associations to be instituted. 
The most important source of waste is doubtless the 
failure to conserve energy through utilizing it only in 
effective ways. The novice does so many things, 
makes so many movements, thinks so many thoughts 
that are not directly related to the accomplishment of 
his task; while the expert has acquired the power of 
shooting directly at the bull's eye. 

But as the pupil goes on in his arithmetical or alge- 
braic work we find that difficulties once so great are 
more readily disposed of; for time and energy expended 
he accomplishes more, and w^hen he has mastered any 
particular subject, as trigonometry, we see that he 
has acquired the capacity to enjoy himself in this field 
for hours at a time without fatigue, where formerly a 
single hour's apphcation might draw too heavily upon 

* There is a general law apparently to the effect that in the 
learning of anything there is much excess action in the early 
stages, and gradually just the required action gets selected 
out from all the irrelevant performances, and firmly estab- 
lished through constant repetition. Cf. Bain, op. cit, p. 506 
et, seq. 



262 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

his resources. See how the accomphshed mathe- 
matician spends his whole hfe over his problems, and 
without too great dissipation of his forces either. And 
what is true of the mathematician is equally true in 
principle of the specialist in every department of 
human activity. The amateur is always prodigal of 
his resources; he spends a relatively large amount of 
energy in achieving simple tasks; but mth experi- 
ence, with practice, he learns to save his strength and 
to employ it to the greatest advantage. The beginner 
is tariftl'ess for the reason that he does not know how, 
as we say, to be economical. Learning has for its 
end, speaking neurologically, to establish a network 
of just those neural processes that are required for 
adjustment to any situation, and to close up the chan- 
nels that in the tyro give a chance for capital to be 
drawn off into ruinous speculation. Becoming pro- 
ficient in any study or superior in any skill means, 
regarded from this standpoint, the selection and per- 
fecting of just the activities, ideal and motor, that are 
of service in attaining the end in view, and allomng 
all others to disappear through lack of exercise. So 
the mathematician and the grammarian and the teacher 
and the lawyer and the business man, as the fruit of 
thoroughly mastering their respective specialities, be- 
come able to use all their energies profitably in deal- 
ing with their favorite themes. 

164. The defenders of formal discipline conceive of 
the brain as a reservoir of energy; they hold that this 
reservoir may be tapped at any point and its contents 
drawn off as required to meet any kind of need. Now, 
our present-day conception of the construction and 
functioning of the brain would lead us to attach some 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 263 

degree of validity to this notion, but it has certainly 
been pushed too far by the Disciplinarians. It is 
doubtless true that there may be transference of energy 
from one cerebral area to another. In a certain sense 
as Flechsig has said, cerebral energy, like water, tends 
to find its level, — if it be drawn off from one area it 
flows in from others.* But the likening of cerebral 
energy to water is apt to lead to error. The different 
regions of the brain are probably not so closely con- 
nected that one can be drained fully into the others. 
If this were so it ought to be that a person could utilize 
all his energies in some special direction. He ough*t 
to be able to apply himself to his mathematics or his 
law or his psychology until he should exhaust his 
resources. Now, while it does appear that in a well- 
organized brain in maturity one's energies can be 
expended largely at a single point, yet is it not true in 
a measure of every one that when exhaustion is induced 
by a particular kind of work, there is still force left 
for different occupations? College professors who 
become much fatigued over their customary duties 
during the year are able in the summer to engage in 
other activities with much vigor. The engineer greatly 
enjoys and is rested by reading, while the linguist is 
refreshed by travel and sight-seeing. The metaphysi- 
cian whose energies are spent over prolonged thinking 
of an abstract, introspective character enjoys getting 
out into nature, and coming in contact with concrete 
realities. The wearied business man, again, enjoys 
the opera and music, and the mathematician is glad 

^ Cf. Curtis, Inhibition, Fed. Sem., Vol. VI. ; also Breese, 
On Inhibition; Psych. Rev., Vol. III., and Monograph Siip-^ 
plement. 



264 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

to spend an hour in ''resting his mind" as he says 
over a novel or a game of whist. 

Observe now a youth whose organism is still in a 
formative condition working at his studies, and see 
illustrated the principle that force generated by special 
exercise cannot be utilized wholly in a different line 
of business. Thoughtful teachers know that young 
pupils cannot be held with profit to one task for longer 
than thirty or forty minutes. When the thought 
channels seem to be clogged up in one field, as in alge- 
bra, they may be quite free in another locahty, as in 
history or in manual training. No sensible instructor 
would attempt to confine a pupil to a single kind of 
activity until he had used up all his available capital; 
such a proceeding would result alike in squandering 
vital force and in making poor use of valuable time. 
So the reservoir theory of cerebral energy breaks down 
when the analogy with physical things is carried too 
far. It fails to take account of the fact that the cere- 
bral mechanism is not constructed after the pattern 
of a well or a receptacle for liquids of any sort; it is 
not designed for storage at all, but is fashioned on 
mechanical principles for the utilization of force in 
various ways, and the plan of its construction deter- 
mines the conditions under which the energy may be 
expended to greatest profit. 

In every machine there are economical and wasteful 
methods of operation, and the same must be true in 
principle of the brain. A given amount of force can 
accomplish much more in promoting activities in well 
organized than in poorly organized areas. This does 
not mean, of course, that energy generated in one 
way cannot be used at all in other ways; but it does 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 265 

Imply in its practical bearings that an individual should 
be required to perform during his learning period tiiose 
activities which he will be called upon to perform 
most often in maturity; he must be practised in doing 
as an apprentice what he will have to do as an artisan. 
It would be folly indeed for a learner in civil engineer- 
ing to devote his time largely to developing energy for 
his work by the study of the Chinese language. The 
experience would doubtless be of some assistance to 
him; but how much more would it profit him to apply y 
himself mainly to those things which would be di- 
rectly involved in the activities of later j^-ears. Of 
course this is a relative, not an absolute matter; doubt- 
less some benefit can be gained from all activities 
whatsoever. But the greatest aid will be derived 
from those special exercises which are concerned wdth 
the particular adjustments which one's position in 
the social mechanism will demand of him. The term 
*' particular/' it will be understood, does not refer alone 
nor mainly to the trade or profession one adopts; it 
includes his social relations in the larger ^dew, and 
his intellectual and aesthetic relations to the environ- 
ing world. But the point is that the study of Chinese 
or Sanskrit or conchology or calculus or cube root in 
the hope to make the best preparation for meeting these 
relations effectively would surely not be the part of 
msdom. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. (Concluded.) 

§ I. The Effects of Excessive Special Training. 

165. It is well known that specialists often arrive 
at the point where their minds get into grooves, as it 
were, and they lose their bearings if they come out 
into the open to take a look around. The voices of 
truth which come from their own cells are for them 
full of significance. They know what they indicate, 
what lies back of them, what is to be done with refer- 
ence to them; but the voices of truth from other 
quarters either fall upon deaf ears, or are esteemed to 
be only meaningless jargon. One is reminded in this 
connection of Hamilton's well-known statement that 
the mathematician pure and simple is incapable of 
y dealing effectively with many of the situations of daily 
life. He gets settled in a particular way of looking 
at his environments so that he keeps his eyes open 
always for special characteristics, and in time he can- 
not see anything else. If he cannot reduce complex 
phenomena to the form of the equation, he cannot 
comprehend them. Most of the affairs of human life, 
however, do not admit of such exact, minute analysis 
with precise determination of the value of every ele- 
mentary factor;^ so that the merchant, the statesman? 

*Cf. Mill, Autobiography, p. 19. 

266 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 267 

— in short the ''man of the world" must acquire the 
power of estimating complex situations as wholes, 
even though there may be a lack of perfect certitude 
in the premises. There is the business man's ''shrewd- 
ness/' the farmer's "sense of the weather," the teach- 
er's "tact" and "instinct," — ^modes of judgment 
regarding matters which lie beyond the domain of 
mathematical proof, and adjustment to which could 
never be secured by mathematical method. 

So, prolonged study in a particular field, instead of 
conferring upon the student the power to deal the 
better wdth all other aspects of the world, may, on the 
contrary, lead to arrest in the development of readi- 
ness and efficiency in adjustment thereto. As Harris 
says:^ "The law of apperception, we are told, proves 
that temporary methods of solving problems should 
not be so thoroughly mastered as to be used involun- 
tarily, or as a matter of unconscious habit for the 
reason that a higher and more adec[uate method of 
solution will then be found miore difficult to acquire. 
The more thoroughly a method is learned, the more it 
becomes part of the mind, and the greater the repug- 
nance of the mind toward a new method. For this 
reason, parents and teachers discourage young chil- 
dren from the practice of counting on the fingers, 
believing that it will cause much trouble later to root 
out this vicious habit, and replace it by purel}^ mental 
processes. Teachers should be careful, especially with 
precocious children, not to continue too long in the 
use of a process that is becoming mechanical; for it 

* Report of the Committee of Fifteen on the Correlation 
of Studies in Elementary Education. Bloomington, 111., 1895, 
pp. 25-57. 



V 



^y 



268 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

is already growing into a second nature, and becoming 
a part of the unconscious apperceptive process by 
which the mind reacts against the en\dronment, recog- 
nizes its presence, and explains it to itself. The child 
that has been overtrained in arithmetic reacts apper- 
ceptively against his enviromnent chiefly by noticing 
its numerical relations — he counts and adds; his other 
apperceptive reactions being feeble, he neglects quali- 
ties and casual relations. Another child, who has 
been drilled in recognizing colors, apperceives the 
shades of color to the neglect of all else. A third child, 
excessively trained in form studies b}^ the constant use of 
geometric solids and much practice in looking for the 
fundamental geometrical forms lying at the basis of 
the multifarious objects that exist in the world, will, 
as a matter of course, apperceive geometric forms, 
ignoring the other phases of objects/' 



§ 2. The Development of Methods of Thinking by 
Formal Discipline. 

166. But there are those — Fouillee is one — who 
maintain that the benefit of all study lies in the mental 
attitude, or method of attacking the world which it 
develops in the student, and not in the body of ideas 
which he acquires from it. So if in maturity one 
should have forgotten all his Latin and Greek and 
geometry and physics, he w^ould still have gained 
certain ways of looking at the world and operating 
upon it which would be of immense advantage to him 
in all his undertakings. But now, how can method 
be devoid of content and still have life left in it? When 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 269 

the mind has lost its images, its ideas, the records of 
experience, together mth the motor memories con- 
nected therewith, does it still retain memories of the 
way of doing things that will be of service to it? Can 
it apperceive new experiences by old modes, casting 
them into certain forms made ready for them by the 
way in which previous experiences had to be handled? 
Could we blot out all content from our lives, and still 
keep systems of forms into which we could run all new 
experiences? These questions show to what extent 
material conceptions have determined our way of 
regarding the mental life, and how figures of speech 
derived from the physical laboratory lead us far afield 
in our thinldng about the mind. Form without mat- 
ter, Kant said long ago, is empty; and our modern 
notions of the manner in which the individual adjusts 
himself to things certainly indorse this view. 

But yet there is seen to be some truth in this view 
when regarded in a particular light. A pupil may be 
required to apply himself to geometrical study for a 
couple of years, and in doing this he gets into a habit ' 
of attacking things in a certain fashion, and this habit 
endures even after the special objects, in dealing with 
which it was established, have disappeared from con- 
sciousness, although they are probably never wholly 
lost. One may think of this as a disposition or direc- 
tion of movement which the organism falls into and 
which it tends to remain in permanently by a kind 
of law of inertia. Our preceding review of the great 
complexity of the adjustive processes, with the ten- 
dency toward condensation as experiences multiply, 
leaving a sort of mood as the representative of a body 
of concrete experiences, would be wholly in accord 



270 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

y with the theory that a habit of thought could be estab- 
lished by a particular kind of exercise. 

The principle is freely illustrated in the people one 
sees around him; the mathematician has a certain 
way of looking at things, the lawyer a different way, 
and the musician is quite distinct from both. Bring 
these persons in contact with any situation and they 
will strive to react upon it according to the method 
which has been effective in their special activities. 
And in so far as a certain kind of exercise might give 
a method of attack which would be more effective in 
adaptation to a given environment than the method 
which could be gained by experience in that special 
field, there would be value in the formal discipline 
which would result from study of the first sort. If 
geometry, for instance, develops in the student a habit 
of reacting upon situations which would bring better 
results in the work of the statesman or the physician, 
than the habits which would be developed in the pur- 
suit of their particular branches, then, of course, the 
t discipline derived from the study of geometry would 
be of primary importance for the statesman and the 
physician. 

But how could this be possible? Is the geometrical 
attitude better for the psychologist than the psychologi- 
cal attitude? Would it be of advantage to the his- 
torian to be got into the algebraic way of dealing with 
his phenomena? Rather would it not be necessary 
for him to acquire that way of dealing with things 
which is established by much experience with his- 
torical facts? Again, should the physician come to 
his work with the attitude of the geometrician? Or 
is there a peculiar disposition required for the sue- 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 271 

cessful pursuit of medicine which can. be gained only 
by deahng successfully with the situations in this 
held? It does not seem that one need remain in doubt 
about this matter. Neither experience nor theory 
indorse the proposition that the method acquired in l^^^ 
one department of activity is best adapted to another 
and different department. Good method is simply 
the attitude of the organism which is most favorable 
for adjusting itself effectively to a situation. And 
unless the situations in different fields are just the same, 
then the methods must vary to suit the differences, 
and always be adapted to the thing in hand. 

167. But this general statement probably needs 
qualification in this respect — that certain phases of 
the world are more complex than others, and adjust- 
ment to them iuA^olves a combination or synthesis of 
methods. For instance, the phase of the world de- 
scribed by physics is more complex than that described 
by geometry; in a sense the former includes the latter, 
and other things besides. In dealing wdth the situa- 
tions which physics describes, then, one will employ 
the method which is developed by the study of geom- 
etry. The geom^etrical method is incorporated, as it 
were, in the more involved method of physics, and it 
would seem most economical to have the student fa- 
miliar with the method of geometry before he under- 
takes the study of physics. So, too, the method gained 
in the observation of plant life will be of assistance in 
observing human life; psychology is far more com- 
plex than botany; and in the pursuit of the former 
the student can utilize the method developed in the 
study of the latter. So in other studies the method 
acquired in any given one may be utilized in the study 



272 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

-f- of one to which it is related but which is more com- 
plex. 

168. It seems hardly necessary to add that in all 
adjustment there is demanded a method of attacking 
situations which will enable one to couple up things 
that belong together, and keep apart things that are 
not intrinsically related, and to proceed connectedly 
from what is clearly understood to what is obscure 
and needing to be explored. Now, doubtless all ex- 
perience conducted on these lines will be of some 
advantage in every emergency; but it must not be 
inferred from this that any special formal study has 

[//peculiar value for the development of habits of thought 
of this character. If any exception were to be made 
it would be, perhaps, in favor of logic, the sole aim 
of which is to indicate the modes of thinking which 
will give reliable results in all mental processes. Ever 
since Aristotle's day men have accorded high rank to 
formal logic; it 'Reaches one how to reason aright," 
has been the contention. No one seems to have been 
more confident of the superior worth of this study 
than Mill; ''I know of nothing, in my education," he 
says,^ ''to which I think myself more indebted for 
whatever capacity of thinking I have attained. The 
first intellectual operation in which I arrived at any 
proficiency was dissecting a bad argument, and find- 
ing in what part the fallacy lay; and though whatever 
capacity of this sort I attained was due to the fact 
that it was an intellectual exercise in which I was 
most perseveringly drilled by my father, yet it is also 
true that the school logic, and the mental habits ac- 

^Of, cit., p. 19. 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 273 

quired in studying it, were among the principal instru- 
ments of this drilling. I am persuaded that nothing, 
in modern education, tends so much, when properly 
used, to form exact thinkers, who attach a precise 
meaning to words and propositions,, and are not imposed 
on by vague, loose, or ambiguous terms. The boasted 
influence of mathematical studies is nothing to it; 
for in mathematical processes none of the real diffi- 
culties of correct ratiocination occur." 

Mill is unquestionably right when he says that logic 
develops a tendency to search out the exact dictionary 
denotation of words, and analyze propositions to dis- 
cover whether they belong to this or that class, or 
violate this or that canon. But there is a difference 
between dealing effectively with words and proposi- 
tions according to the rules of the game of logic, and 
dealing effectively with the world of real things. For- 
mal logic never aided one to see straight into the heart 
of man or nature; it does not give insight into psy- 
chology or physics or • medicine or teaching. The 
prominence of formal logic in mediaeval times did 
not lead men to truth in any field, but rather hindered 
its votaries from perceiving things as they really were, 
as Locke said over and over again. "Non vitce sed 
scholce discimus" furnished Locke a text for much of 
his educational writing.^ The disputations of the 
mediaeval logicians were fruitless enough in real life.^ 

* See Quick, Locke on Education, especially pp. 69-77. 

* " iBacon has given us a picture of a body of men with pow- 
erful minds but with little substantial knowledge. He found 
himself, at Cambridge, England, 'amid men of sharp and strong 
wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, 
their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors, chiefly 



A 



274 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

Formal logic is not so different in principle from 
chess or backgammon; it has rules of its own, and 
works well enough in its own territory, but it does 
not point a way to clear thinking in other fields. One 
who could deal wdth the world of realities only accord- 
ing to the method of formal logic would be helpless 
indeed, for the insight which this study gives relates 
l^,. not to things but to words and propositions on the 
verbal and formal side merely. The mind reacting 
upon its environments can without doubt get to appre- 
hend it only by pursuing logical processes; but the 
point is that it cannot acquire this power by formal 
training but only by dealing directly ^dth the phe- 
nomena to be understood. Every subject has its own 
logic, and it is always a logic of fact, and not of terms 
and phrases. A man may be ever so keen in formal 
logic and a crass blunderer in educational or political 
or scientific thinking. When formal logic was at its 
best in an earlier day, superstition and error were also_ 
at their best. It was not until men abandoned the 
^'hootings of scholasticism" and came face to face 
with things and ascertained by actual experience how 
to deal with them that any progress was made in the 
discovery of truth. The test of correct logical think- 
ing must always be the result upon adjustment, and 
this criterion is largely lacking in formal logic. 

Aristotle, their dictator, as their persons were shut up in the 
' cells of monasteries and colleges ; and who, knowing little his- 
tory, either of nature or time, did, out of no great quantity of 
matter, and infinite agitation of mt, spin cobwebs of learn- 
ing, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no 
substance or profit.' " — Cramer, Talks to Students on the Art of 
Study, p. 68. 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 275 



5 3. The Establishment of Mental Habits by Formal 

Training. 

169. Finally, it is maintained by the Disciplinarians 
that useful habits may be developed in one line of study 
and employed to advantage in all studies whatsoever; 
and habits in this sense are regarded as something 
different from method in one's thinking. They have 
in view habits of perseverance, attention, industry, 
and the like, which, of course, will be serviceable in 
whatever position one may be placed in life. Suc- 
cessful adaptation to any new and complex situation 
requires persistent attention in order to discover its 
essential characteristics. The question now is whether 
the linguist, for instance, who acquires these habits in 
the study of grammar can employ them at their face 
value in whatever tasks he may have to perform in 
after-life. Will his attention serve him as effectively 
in the investigation of political questions as in the 
pursuit of linguistics? Could the linguist apply him- 
self as concentratedly to the study of physics as of 



grammar? 



We have evidence enough in the things we behold 
about us, it seems, to answer the question with some 
degree of assurance. Do we not find that the gram- 
marian can attend more faithfully to the facts in his 
particular field than to those in other fields with which 
he is less familiar? And why? Upon w^hat do such 
habits depend? The principle is illustrated in the 
ordinary habits of every-day life. One gets into the 
habit of going to bed, we will say, at ten o'clock. When 
the clock strikes that V>our it sets off motor processes 



276 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

which eventually lead him to bed. A well-known 
actor has testified that when the clock strikes eight at 
night his heart jumps forward, and he feels a thrill 
throughout his whole being. That particular stimulus 
had for many years been associated with the raising 
of the stage curtain, which was formerly the occasion 
always of a good deal of emotional excitement, and 
now this stimulus automatically reproduces these feel- 
ings. And this is what habit requires — ^the correla- 
tion of particular stimulations with particular activities 
so that the former will produce the latter without 
conscious effort on the individual's part. 

Habits of perseverance, attention, and the like are, 
of course, of a more general character than those that 
have been indicated, but they depend upon the same 
fundamental principle — the establishment of certain 
reactive processes in response to characteristic stimuli. 
These are the modes of attack which are of greatest 
worth in securing adjustment to the situations in ques- 
tion, and so they have been selected and preserved. 
But being general in character they are applicable to a 
great variety of situations. One who has got into the 
habit of sticking to his grammatical book when it is 
before him until he masters the task set him will be 
more likely to stick to any book to which he applies 
himself than one who has not had his experience. 
But still this habit cannot be transferred without loss^. 
The grammatical stimuli will in themselves have some 
influence in keeping the individual at his task; there 
will be a certain amount of compelling power in them. 
As a test, substitute algebra for grammar and see 
whether the man will persevere in trying to find out 
what the stuff before him means. If he is not apperceiv- 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 277 

ing the algebraic facts as he does those of grammar, 
how can he attend? Attention is just the mental 
side of adaptation, and when there is no adaptation 
there can be no attention.^ When the boy sees nothing 
in the proposition before him his mind wanders off 
on to other topics; just as when a merchant attends a 
lecture on epistemology he is absent in thought every 
moment. In the event though that the grammarian 
can work his way through the algebra he will doubtless 
be benefited by his discipline in grammar, for in past 
experience attention and perseverance under such 
circmnstances have brought success, and he feels 
they will do so now; and this sort of thing is more or 
less general in its application. 

But the formalists make a mistake in assuming 
that some one branch of study possesses peculiar quali- 
ties in developing these general habits. They maintain, 
naively enough, that perseverance and attention 
acquired in the pursuit of grammar and arithmetic, 
for instance, will prove generally useful, while these 
same habits developed by the study of history and 
literature and botany and psychology will not be so 
valuable. When you ask the Disciplinarian why 
grammar and arithmetic are so superior to other 
studies, he will respond by saying that these subjects 

* Cf. Baldwin, Mental Development, Methods and Processes, 
chap. 15. Speer {op. ciL, p. 3) quotes Maudsley as follows: 
''How, indeed, can there be a response within to the impres- 
sion from without when there is nothing within that is in 
relation of congenial vibation with that which is without. 
Inattention in such case is insusceptibility; and if this be 
complete, then to demand attention is very much like de- 
manding of the eye that it should attend to sound-waves, 
and of the ear that it should attend to light-waves." 



278 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

develop such fine habits; and he apparently forgets 
altogether that no one study has a monopoly of 
habit-developing power. Faithfulness, perseverance, 
diligence, and the rest, however established, become, 
in a measure, of general utility, although, as has been 
pointed out, they cannot be transferred from one field 
to another without some loss. 

170. Again, in the more strictly emotional activities 
there are habitual attitudes or expressions of a general 
character that when established by one kind of exer- 
cise may be of assistance in situations similar in respect 
of the kind of reaction demanded, but not so much so 
perhaps in respect of the content reacted upon. Fear 
developed in the classroom will tend to manifest 
itself on many occasions outside; the pupil will be 
timid in the presence of people wherever he is. It is 
maintained by the authorities at West Point that 
courage developed in the training there will stand 
the soldier in good stead when he is on the field of 
battle. James speaking of the matter says^ that, 
''Pride and pugnacity have often been considered 
unworthy passions to appeal to in the young. But 
in their more refined and noble forms they play a great 
part in the schoolroom and in education generally, 
being in some characters most potent spurs to effort. 
Pugnacity need not be thought of merely in the form 
of physical combativeness. It can be taken in the 
sense of a general imwillingness to be beaten b}^ any 
kind of difficulty. It is what makes us feel ^stumped^ 
and challenged by arduous achievements, and is essen- 
tial to a spirited and enterprising character. The 

* Talks to Teachers on Ps5^chology and to Students on Some 
of Life's Ideals, pp. 54, 55. 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 279 

fighting impulses must often be appealed to. Make 
the pupil feel ashamed of being scared at fractions, 
of being 'downed' by the law of falling bodies; rouse 
his pugnacity and pride, and he will rush at the diffi- 
cult places with a sort of inner wrath at himself that 
is one of his best moral faculties. A victory scored 
under such conditions becomes a turning point and 
crisis of character. It represents the high-water 
mark of his powers, and serves thereafter as an ideal 
pattern for his self-imitation. The teacher who never 
rouses this sort of pugnacious excitement in his pupils 
falls short of one of his best forms of usefulness." 

But courage and pride and every good emotion can 
be aroused as readily and effectively by the pupil's 
study of nature as of grammar, of Shakespeare or 
Tennyson, as of cube root or the subjunctive mood. 
And, moreover, an emotion aroused with reference to 
a particular situation, as when a pupil is frightened 
when he has a conference with his school principal, 
will be more active in just that situation than in differ- 
ent ones; the pupil will in the future be frightened 
more readily by his principal than by the pastor cr 
family doctor. A lawyer might be very much ashamed 
to be ''downed" by a case in law, but yet take easily 
enough a defeat in whist or golf or billiards, while it 
would be just the other way round with the gambler 
or athlete. Professors in the university may have a 
spirited and enterprising attitude enough with refer- 
ence to the things in their special fields, but they often 
exult in hot knowing or caring anything about the 
things in the territory of their colleagues. The law 
holds here as everywhere else in mental functioning; 
the attitudes and activities that have been frequently 



280 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

repeated in reaction upon a situation become ever 
f more ready in recurrence in that situation, but under 
^ different circumstances they will be reinstated only 
in part or not at all. So that to make pride and pug- 
nacity and shame the most effective governors of life 
they must be stimulated during the preparatory period 
in the sort of situations they will need to be active 
in regard to in later years.^ 

171. Perhaps there is demanded a word of qualifica- 
tion of these general propositions regarding formal 
discipline as they should be practically interpreted 
to guide education. From what has gone before it 
might be inferred by some that one group of persons 
will be required in their daily lives to adjust them- 
selves only to the psychological side of their environ- 
ment, and so will need to be equipped only with psy- 
chological facts; others will need only mathematical 
facts; still others only zoological facts, and so on. 
But one would certainly be as much in error in think- 
ing that this real world wdth which we must all deal 
constantly is thus divided up into psychological and 
mathematical and linguistic and legal strata or sec- 
tions, each marked off rigidly from the others, and 
every man living his little day in one or the other of 
these ^dthout ever crossing over into neighboring 
regions — one would go as far astray in acting on such 
an assumption as the formalists have in conceiving 
that if one can conduct himself aright in one field of 

* I have seen men who would face any danger on the foot- 
ball field break down utterly in trying to make a public ad- 
dress. Again, I have known men who would be thoroughly 
honest in their sports who would not hesitate to lie and cheat 
in an examination. Cf. Briggs, School, College, and Char* 
acter, Essay on College Honor. 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 281 

formal materials and relations he can do so in all fields 
whatsoever. There is danger that we may not fully 
appreciate the organic character of the environments 
to which every individual must adjust himself. The 
environment which history describes is most intimately 
correlated with the environments which mathematics 
and psychology and biology and all the rest describe. 
The world is not partitioned off into departments in 
any such sense as the titles of studies in the schools 
might suggest; and one person's environment is shot 
through in a most complex and intricate way with phe- 
nomena described by history and physics and spelling 
and literature and other studies. 

Especially must we not lose sight of the fact that 
the people about one constitute the most important 
phase of his environment. Their interests, their social 
ideals, the thoughts which engage their attention, 
their opinions of culture, their traditions — everything 
which goes to make up their daily lives must be adapted 
to by each individual. He must come to understand 
all these things and organize his understanding into 
conduct; so that even if a particular study exercised 
no influence upon one's relations toward nature or 
toward his fellow-men in the more serious ethical 
sense, it might nevertheless confer upon him the most 
desirable power of being able to participate in the 
mental life about him. So we cannot think of a person 
of any degree of development reacting upon his envi- 
ronment in a civilized community, even if narrowly 
limited, who would not find of service some arithmeti- 
cal and geometrical and historical and linguistic and 
botanical and other sorts of knowledge. To say then 
that any certain study will be of no account in the 



/ 



282 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTxMENT. 

life of a person is going too far; but to say, on the other 
hand, that some formal study will, in the best way 
possible, make one ready for all adjustments is much 
worse. It is a relative matter here as it has been at 
all points in our discussion; everything will doubtless 
be of some use, but many things will be of compara- 
tively little account, wdiile others will be of great util- 

' ity in the life of every individual. 

172. Consider, again, that in a social organism one 
member must have faith in the serviceab.eness of an- 
other w^hose work is essential to the welfare of the whole, 
and he must be willing to tolerate him and assist in 
providing conditions necessary for his greatest effi- 
ciency. Especially is this true in our country, where 
members deliberately determine whether or not one 
of their number shall be allow^ed to continue in his 
w^ork. Shall the state support investigators in agri- 
culture? in medicine? in education? Shall there be 
specialists to look after the hygienic and other interests 
of the community? In order to settle such problems 
wisely citizens must have some knowledge of the ques- 
tions at issue, at least enough to L^ppreciate the impor- 
tance of the matters involved. A man's estimation of 
values depends upon his acquaintance with the things 
under consideration. What he knows nothing about 
he esteems lightly; it does not apparently enter into 
his life, and he cannot conceive that it enters into 
any one else's life. A highly developed community 

L of pure specialists would be impossible, since one 
would not harmonize with or in any way favor another. 
In a faculty of professors one who has never pursued a 
given study will see little or nothing of value in it. 
And the university as we know it could never have been 
/ 



THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE. 283 

developed if the various professors had not had a broad 
general training in which they were put en rapport 
with the principal departments of human activity. 
So, considered from this standpoint too, we must in fit- 
ting the child out for membership in civilized society, 
prepare him for broad and varied instead of narrov'^^ 
and HDn-social experiences. 



CHAPTER XV. 
CONCLUSION. 

173. It will be in place now, perhaps, before taking 
leave of our subject, to get a bird's-eye view of the 
course over which we have travelled. Our inquiry 
relating to the extent and boundaries of our field, the 
peculiar composition and character of the soil, and the 
most effective method of cultivating it have led us 
to the conclusion that while our province is far from 
exactly and definitely bounded, still there are certain 
regions which are occupied by no one else, and which 
every one acknowledges belong properly to the edu- 
cationist. It has become apparent that on account of 
the great complexities presented in our field, greater 
than those found elsewhere, it is extremely difficult to 
determine how best to work it. Our survey of the meth- 
ods which have been employed in times past in treating 
education has revealed the obstacles and uncertainties 
which exist therein; and as a consequence widely 
different doctrines have been preached at one time or 
another throughout human history, and great names 
are found ranged on opposite sides of the most vital 
questions of teaching. 

We have seen the necessity of employing methods 
of precision in our investigation. We must adopt 

284 



CONCLUSION. 285 

modes of inquiry that will counteract certain ten- 
dencies toward error in our thinking, which incline us 
all to project out into the world what exists in our 
own minds and hearts, and then conduct ourselves 
toward this as though it were the external and truth- 
ful order of things. The way to overcome our difli= 
culties lies in the adoption of scientific method in all 
our procedure, for this greatly assists the inve.stigator 
in restraining the element of prejudice in his inquiries. 
We have found that a considerable body of educa- 
tional doctrine has already been worked out according 
to scientific method, and there is great interest at 
present in this work. But still education is far behind 
most of the other sciences. To supplement his own 
investigations the educationist must seek help from 
many sources, since he must deal with extremely com- 
plex matters, which in their elements are dealt with 
in various sciences. He must summon to his aid every 
science which is concerned with the investigation and 
description of human nature, either directly or indirectly ; 
and he must strive to interpret phenomena which are 
yet unexplained in the light of principles presented 
in biology, in psychology in its several departments, in 
evolution, in neurology, in ethics, and in sociology. 
In proceeding in this way he may pursue strict scien- 
tific method, since in every science certain funda- 
mental generalizations constitute but hypotheses which 
are applied to the explanation of occurrences which 
cannot be directly investigated. So a principle of 
human nature presented in psychology will become a 
principle of education when it is employed in the inter- 
pretation of phenomena which do not lie directly 
within the domain of pure psychology, but which are. 



286 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

nevertheless, psychical phenomena; and the same is 
true in substance of generalizations of biology, evolu- 
tion, neurology, and the rest. 

174. We have seen that the end of all educational 
endeavor must be to give the individual a mastery of 
the world. And when we come to define "the world'' 
we see that it includes not only what people call ma- 
terial things, but there is very much more to it which 
conditions the well-being of the individual, and toward 
which he must be led to take a right attitude. We find, 
indeed, that man's social environment is the most real 
and vital part of the world to him. In modern civil- 
ized life one's happiness depends more upon the char- 
acter of his relations to his fellows than to material 
things, and education must seek primarily to adjust 
him in the most harmonious way to society. Then 
there is what we have called his intellectual relation to 
the world; we have conceived that there are intellec- 
tual needs that are as real and vital as physical needs. 
One's welfare is determined largely by his ability to 
comprehend the causes and rationale of the things 
with which he has most frequent intercourse. All the 
evidence points to the fact that the mind of man will 
react in some way upon the phenomena presented to 
his senses, and education must lead him to see the uni- 
verse operating according to law rather than caprice; 
it must supplant the natural animistic conception of 
things by the scientific conception. Then again, man 
sustains relations of an aesthetic character toward his 
environment, and these are very profound and very 
real. His well-being requires that he be led to an 
appreciation of the beautiful in nature and in art, and 
that there be developed in him the tendency and the 



CONCLUSION. 287 

power to remodel his en\dronments so as to minister 
to his sesthetic needs. 

175. Every human being bears these several rela- 
tions to the world, and they must be perfected by educa- 
tion; but we found that when men are banded to- 
gether in a social organism they do not all sustain 
these relations to the same extent and in the same 
degree of complexity. In order that the social organ- 
ism may be most prosperous some men need to be masters 
of complex phases of the world of which others may be 
wholly ignorant; just as in the somatic organism the 
eye needs to be more sensitive, more responsive to the 
environment, to deal with a much wider range of things, 
than does the foot or the stomach. So in workifig out 
our educational regime we must regard a man as a 
member of a community rather than as an isolated 
individual, and in consequence thereof we must pre- 
pare him for his particular needs determined by the 
particular offices he will fill in society. Some will 
perform simple work and their adjustments and their 
needs will be relatively simple; others will perform 
very complex duties and they will require much more 
elaborate preparation therefor. But all have certain 
needs in common, and our educational machinery 
must be run in view of this. The several '^ classes" 
necessary in society as we know it will each be carried 
along as far as the present organization of social forces 
will admit of, or until they are fitted to discharge 
their peculiar duties efficiently, and adjust themselves 
in happy relations to every phase of the complex 
world of men and things which conditions their wel- 
fare. The physician must be fitted to do more than 
mix drugs and administer them. In his contact mth 



288 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

his fellow-men he influences them not only physically 
but intellectually, ethically, and aesthetically, and in 
turn he is influenced by them in all these ways. And 
w^hat is true of the physician is equally true in princi- 
ple of the lawyer, the teacher, the statesman, the 
engineer. In short, it holds for every individual, no 
matter what special w^ork may be engaging his atten- 
tion principally. 

176. Understanding Adjustment in this sense we 
pass next to consider the method of attaining it as the 
end of educational effort. We find that mere acci- 
dental, desultory, unguicled contact with the world 
does not give understanding or mastery of it. When 
it is encountered en masse in all its complexity it over- 
whelms the individual, and instead of his overcoming 
it he is overcome by it. So he must be introduced to 
it in a certain definite, orderly manner, working in a 
progressive way from the relatively simple things which 
he has learned at any period through significant inter- 
course with them, to closely related and ever more 
complex things. The educationist then must arrange 
the world for the individual so that he will be brought 
into correspondence with it in this manner, else it will 
ever remain a stranger to him. The ability to deal 
with any situation depends upon one's having had 
experience with some similar situation. And the 
educationist will so plan it in view of this principle 
that the individual will in his educational course be 
made ready for those general and special duties which 
he will perform as a member of a community. 

We found that as the individual's experiences in- 
crease he resorts to economical devices so that he can 
use them most effectively in any situation in which he 



CONCLUSION. 289 

may be placed. He discovers that it will be of great 
assistance to him to take any single object as a type of 
many others, which may be reacted to in the same way. 
It will be a help, also, to condense his experiences, 
relegating "animportant characteristics of situations to 
the background of consciousness. When reaction 
upon any phase of the environment becomes suffi- 
ciently definite and certain, he drops the whole thing 
out of consciousness and keeps before the eye only 
those things he has not mastered thoroughly, and 
which he needs to look into carefully in his dealings 
with them. Continuing the economizing process he 
gathers up a whole lot of details of a given experi- 
ence, attaches a verbal symbol to the complex, and 
then under all ordinary circumstances he makes the 
symbol do more or less complete duty for the elaborate 
thing it denotes. 

This phenomenon of human nature, we have seen, 
has led many people to believe that every experience 
gives a power of dealing with any given situation 
whether one's experience has been related to it or not. 
The doctrine of formal discipline arose naturally enough 
out of a method of studying mental function which 
was incapable of showing the progressive stages of 
generalization, condensation, and symbolization. It 
was easier to think of the mind as a reservoir of power 
receiving contributions from all activities whatsoever, 
and utilizing its resources in support of every activity 
indifferently. But a little inquiry revealed plainly 
enough that while particular experiences disappear 
from consciousness still they never quit the organism 
altogether; and in their departure they leave no re- 
mains of the nature of a general power which can guide 



290 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

one in any situation unless he has had experience 
with a similar one. 

177. Now glancing ahead we see that upon these 
foundations the educationist will build. The details 
of this building must be presented in another volume, 
but a rough sketch of it may be given here. The edu- 
cationist will, in the first place, elaborate a curriculum 
which will be adapted to make the individual efficient; 
which will give him mastery over his social, intellectual, 
aesthetic, and material environments — a mastery as 
complete as the position which the individual will 
occupy in the social economy will allow. What studies 
will make the individual most capable in his social rela- 
tions? Plainly those which will give him most intimate 
contact wdth men, alike of the past and of the present, 
in relationships which will be of greatest advantage 
to all concerned. The educationist will not put sub- 
jects in the curriculum that are designed merely to 
discipline the mind by formal exercise. He will not 
have pupils spend time OA^er parsing or grammatical 
forms or cube root or spelling or anything else of the 
sort which they will never employ in intercourse -with 
their fellows, or in participating in the accomplishments 
of the race. He will not have them memorize for the 
sake of discipline names and dates and sizes of armies 
and the like which are presented in what people have 
called history. He will exclude everything which 
does not give very good proofs of its suitability to assist 
the learner in his relations mth men and things, by 
presenting to him now situations which he will encoun- 
ter, though it may be in a more complex form, in later 
life. In the matter of studies purporting to be of 
social value, for example, the educationist wiU proceed 



CONCLUSION. 291 

opon the doctrine that if the individual can be got to 
react in desirable ways to social situations actual or 
ideal during the developmental period, then he ^dll 
acquire modes of reaction which will be serviceable to 
him in all times and places. The educationist will 
cast out everything which cannot return an affirma- 
tive answer to the question, Will the individual in 
mastering you be making in the best way adaptations 
which he will be required to make as a member of a 
social organism? 

Applying this test the educationist will find that 
every individual must gain perfect mastery of the means 
of social intercourse, — reading, writing, spelling, num- 
ber, language, both native and foreign, grammar, and 
rhetoric, so far as he is likely to find them of service but 
no further. If it appears that one who will fill an 
industrial office in society will be brought very infre- 
quently, or perhaps never, into situations where the 
mastery of a foreign tongue will be of assistance he will 
not be expected, much less required, to study it. If it 
appears that the range of words in his native tongue 
which he will make use of will be limited to those sym- 
bolizing experiences involved in the scope of his par- 
ticular activities as a citizen and a workman he will 
not be allowed to waste his time in memorizing a Mil- 
tonian or Shakespearean vocabulary. If it appears 
again that the technicalities of grammar or the formal 
principles of rhetoric wdll contribute little if anything 
to his adjustments — then they will not be found in his 
course of study. Nothing for mere formal discipline 
wall be the watchword. All these things will be mas- 
tered by those in whose wider range of adaptations 
they will help to solve some problem of a social or 



292 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

intellectual or aesthetic or physical character. The 
man preparing himself for work of a relatively simple 
nature, employing his muscles mainly, and whose 
social, aesthetic, and intellectual needs will as a conse- 
quence be relatively simple, mil not be required to 
master as much of language, reading, spelling, and 
similar studies as will be of service in the life of the law- 
yer, the statesman, the teacher or the man of leisure 
devoting himself to literature, art, and kindred pursuits. 
The educationist will take special pains to provide 
for certain needs of every individual that have largely 
been overlooked in educational theory and practice. He 
will have in the curriculum studies which will seek to 
give all pupils without exception, whether destined 
for the farm or the pulpit or the mines, a scientific way 
of looking at the world around them. The time and 
energy spent on such things as parsing and cube root 
by a member of the industrial class will be devoted 
largely to gaining those experiences which will give 
him poise and balance in a bewilderingly complex 
world, leading him to see that what at first appear to 
be lawless happenings, caused by the agency of super- 
natural beings of an uncertain disposition, are really 
occurring unerringly in conformity to great funda- 
mental laws. Again, the educationist will investigate 
all the subjects that are candidates for entrance into 
the curriculum to determine which of them will best 
give the individual aesthetic appreciation of his environ- 
ment, and to such he will assign a place in the course 
of studies. Finally, he will survey all the materials at 
his disposal to see if there are any which will enable 
the learner the better to master his ph3^sical environ- 
ment, which Spencer thought was of first importance 



CONCLUSION. 293 

in human life. If physiolog}^ and chemistry and 
physics and botany as they can be taught in the schools 
can be made to present situations in adapting himself 
to which the pupil will learn to live the better, then they, 
too, will be admitted and taught from this standpoint. 

178. And then when the subjects are selected there 
is still left the task of assigning to each its proper place. 
It is not necessary to say that the complexities of this 
problem are very great; but it is enough here to add 
that they must be resolved by the aid of the principles 
which have been stated. The most real and vital needs 
must be first provided for, and those of least importance 
must occupy a subordinate place. Perhaps we shall 
never be able to work out a perfectly balanced pro- 
gram, one that mil precisely meet the needs of every 
individual put through it, but there is no good reason 
for being discouraged over this, for nowhere in the 
universe are needs exactly met without excess or 
waste, without overdoing or underdoing. In none of 
her processes is nature uniform in hitting the bullseye. 
She depends upon it that if she fires in the general di- 
rection of the target the majority of her shots will take 
effect, and the educationist cannot hope to have better 
success. If he is guided by the principles which have 
been given he will hit the bullseye in the majority of 
cases, and no one can do more than this. 

179. Finally, these principles will guide the educa- 
tionist at every step in his method of handling his 
materials. He knows that he must cause the individual 
to react in the school in the ways in which he must re- 
act outside. He realizes that reading, writing, spelling, 
number, and all the rest are just means used to facili- 
tate social adaptation, and so he will cause his pupil to 



294 EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT. 

use them in this way at every step in his learning. He 
will cause them to be gained in the manner in which 
they will be employed, for this is the only way in which 
they may become effective in the learner's adjustments. 
The teacher will not as a rule put a child in a seat and 
ask him to memorize words, for he appreciates that 
unless they are acquired in the w^ay of facilitating 
social intercourse they cannot be so employed later. 
So; too, the situations in history and literature must be 
made very real, and the adaptations which they are 
designed to confer upon the pupil must be actually 
made by him in the school. The educationist will 
attach no value whatever to the learning of verbal 
propositions about conduct, except as these awaken 
and nourish the actions which they describe and com- 
mend. The teacher will be guided by one great prin- 
ciple of method, — lead the learner to actually make 
the adjustments which the study he is pursuing is 
designed to perfect. Everything is summed up in 
this; all devices have value only as they contribute to 
this end. 

180. Again the teacher -^ill know that he must 
arrange every subject he is to present to his pupil so 
that it will be very closely related to his previous ex- 
perience in and out of school. At every point in his 
teaching he will base what he does upon what his 
pupil has seen and done; he will not make a logical 
start in a study, but he will ascertain what the child 
knows that is related to the subject, and this will indi- 
cate where the beginning must be made. His relation 
to his pupil will be determined wholly by the necessity 
of the latter gathering new experiences in a certain 
jdefinite, psychological, economical manner. He will 



CONCLUSION. 295 

not make his recitation simply a means of discovering 
what the pupil has remembered, but rather a means of 
facilitating his adjustments to new situations, and of 
making these thoroughly stable and secure. 

ISl. It should be added in closing that our survey 
has taken little account of the changes which occur in 
the individual during the process of development 
which, of course, are of prime importance to the educa- 
tionist. The principles we have examined, being 
general, apply as far as they go to every stage of the 
child's education, but the}^ do not provide at all for 
particular needs at particular epochs in the individual's 
career. So the educationist must have at hand other 
principles which indicate what work is most suitable 
for special periods in deA^elopment if he would achieve 
the end of education in the most economical manner. 
But it must be emphasized that the principles of mental 
development will in no way militate against the general 
principles here presented; they wall simply extend 
them, make them more particular, adapt them to 
peculiar situations. They w^ill point out when it will 
be most appropriate to give the pupil any particular 
experience which will be of service in his adjustments. 
We say here that whatever the teacher does for the child 
must help him to deal effectively with men and things, 
and then mental development will tell us what should 
be done at any particular season, and how it can best 
be done at that time. We lay out the general plan 
now, and the details must be looked into later. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



The principal authors discussed or referred to on pre- 
ceding pages are named below, and the pages on which 
they appear are given. It is the aim mainly in this 
list to indicate suitable literature for a course of reading 
in connection with the various topics considered in this 
volume. 

1. Adams, Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education; 

London, 1897. (151, 152, 236, 238, 247, 255.) 

2. Aiken, System of Mind Training; New York, 1896. (137.) 

3. Angell and Thompson, Relation between Certain Organic 

Processes and Consciousness; Psych. Rev., Jan., 1899. 
(105.) 

4. Aristotle, The Politics, Jowett's Translation; Oxford, 

1892. (29, 30, 63.) 

5. Arnold, A French Eton; Middle Class Education and the 

State; London, 1864. (23.) 

6. Bagley, The Apperception of the Spoken Sentence ; Amer. 

Journ. Psych., Vol. 12, No. 1 and Reprint. (37, 158, 
199, 217, 225.) ^ 

7. Bain, Education as a Science; Neiv York, 1886. (60.) 

8. , Emotions and Will ; New York, 1876. (104, 249, 261.) 

9. , On Teaching English; New York. (39.) 

10. Bair, Development of Voluntary Control; Psych. Rev.i 
Sept., 1901. (249.) 

297 



298 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

11. Baldwin, Mental Development, Methods and Processes 

New York, 1893. (85, 87, 104, 142, 155, 165, 198, 217, 
230, 258, 277.) 

12. , Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, VoL 1 ; 

New York, 1901. (5.) 

13. , Feehng and Will; New York, 1902. (85.) 

14. , Mental Development, Social and Ethical Interpreta- 
tions; New York, 1897. (93.) 

15. Balliet, Association of Ideas in Reading; Add. and 

Proc, N. E. A., 1893. (39.) 

16. Barker, The Nervous System; New York, 1900. (80.) 

17. Barnes, Studies in Education; Palo Alto, 1896. (41, 174.) 

18. , A Study on Children's Drawings; Ped. Sem., Vol. 2. 

(178.) 

19. Barnett, Common Sense in Education; London and New 

York, 1900. (70.) 

20. Basedow, In Quick's Essays on Educational Reformers^ 

New York, 1890. (21.) 

21. Bashkirtseff, Journal, Translated by Hall & Heckel, 

Chicago, 1890. (35.) 

22. Bateman, Aphasia and the Localization of the Cerebral 

Speech Mechanism; London, 1890. (258.) 

23. Bawden, a Study of Lapses; Monograph Supplement tO 

the Psijch. Rev., Vol. 3, No. 4. (37.) 

24. Bentley, Amer. Journ. Psych., 1899. {,209. ) 

25. BiNET, The Psychology of Reasoning, Translated by 

Whyte; Chicago, 1899. (213, 240.) 

26. , Perceptions d'Enfants; Revue Philosophique, Dec., 

1890. (174.) 

27. Bolton, Original Investigation in Normal Schools; Educa^ 

Hon, May and June, 1900. (40.) 

28. , Training in Observation; Journ. of Ped., Jan., 1901c 

(253.) 

29. Breese, Inhibition; Psych. Rev., Vol. 3, and Monograph 

Supplement. (84, 263.) 

30. Briggs, Atlantic Monthly, Oct., 1900. (145.) 

SI. , School, College, and Character, Essay on College 

Honor; Boston, 1902. (280.) 
32. Brown-Sequard, Physiology and Pathology of the Central 

Nervous System; Washington, 1877. (84.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 299 

33. Bryax, E. B. ; Fed. Sem., Vol. 7. (31.) 

34. Bryan, W. L., Plato as Teacher; New York, 1897. (62.) 

35. Bryan and Harter, Studies in the Physiology and Psy- 

chology of the Telegraphic Language; Psych. Rev., 
Vol, 4, No. 1 and Reprint; also Vol. 6, No. 4 and Reprint. 
(37.) 

36. BuRK, Development from Fundamental to Accessory, etc. ; 

Fed. Sem., Vol. 6, No. 1 and Reprint. (82.) 

37. Burnett, The One I I^ew Best of All; New York, 1888. 

(35.) 

38. Butler, The Meaning of Education and Other Essays; 

New York, 1898. (86, 95.) 

39. Calkins, Object Lessons; New York, 1890. (137.) 

40. Carpenter, Principles of ]\Iental Physiology; New York, 

1900. (152.) 

41. Cattell, Ueber die Zeit der Erkennung und Benennung 

etc.; Fhilosophische Studien, Vol. 1. (37.) 

42. Clark, Studies in Education (Barnes); Falo Alto, 1896. 

(178.) 

43. Cogswell, Classification of the Sciences; Fhilosophical 

Review, 1899. (9.) 

44. Collins, The Genesis and Dissolution of the Faculty of 

Speech; New York, 1898. (37.) 

45. Commissioner of Education, Report, 1898-99. (40.) 

46. , Report, 1892-93. (41.) 

47. Committee of Ten, Report, published by the N. E. A. (70.) 

48. Committee of Seven, History in Schools; New York, 

1899. (141.) 

49. Committee of Fifteen, Report on the Correlation of 

Studies in Elementary Education; Bloomington, Illinois, 
1895. (267.) 

50. CoMTE, Quoted by Fiske, Cosmical Evolution; Boston, 

1875. (55.) 

51. Cramer, Talks to Students on the Art of Study; San 

Francisco, 1902. (274.) 

52. Curtis, Inhibition; Fed. Sem., Vol. 6, No. 1. (82, 263.) 

53. Darwin, Origin of Species; New York, 1875. (45.) 

54. , Descent of Man; New York, 1875. (79.) 

55. Davidson, A History of Education; New York, 1900. 

(14, 20. 66.>. 



300 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

56. Davidson, Education as World-Building; Educational 

Review, 1900. (65.) 

57. , Aristotle and the Ancient Educational Ideal; New 

York, 1892. (50.) 

58. De Candolle, Histoire des Sciences et des Savants 

depuis deux Siecles ; Geneve, 1873. (35.) 

59. De Garmo, Herbart and the Herbartians; New York, 

1895. (64, 225.) 

60. Dewey, Educational Creeds of the Nineteenth Century, 

Edited by Lang; New York, 1900. (6, 95, 102.) 

61. , The Psychology of Infant Language; Psych. Rev., 

Vol. 1. (38.) 

62. , The School and Society; Chicago, 1899. (41.) 

63. , The Elementary School Record, No. 9. (47, 49, 70, 74.) 

64. , Interest, Second Supplement to the Herbartian 

Year Book, 1895. (152.) 

65. , Psychology; New York, 1893. (205.) 

66. Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom: 

London and New York, 1898. (70.) 

67. Donaldson, Lectures on Education; Edinhiirg, 1874. 

(63.) 

68. Donaldson, H. H., Growth of the Brain; London, 1896. 

(79, 80, 151, 258.) 

69. , The Amer. Journ. Psych., Vols. 3, 4. (77.) 

70. Elder, Aphasia and the Cerebral Speech Mechanism; 

London, 1897. (37.) 

71. Eliot, Mill on the Floss. (146.) 

72. Ely, Introduction to Political Economy, Pt. 1; New 

York, 1889. (6.) 

73. Espinas, Quoted by Guyau, Education and Heredity; 

London, 1891. (91.) 

74. Farrar (Editor), Essays on a Liberal Education; London, 

1868. (25.J 

75. FisKE, Destinj^ of Man in the Light of his Origin; Boston, 

1889. (79.) 

76. Fouillee, Education from a National Standpoint, Trans- 

lated and Edited by Greenstreet; New York, 1892. (22, 
24, 143, 248.) 

77. Flechsig, Ueber die Localization der Geistlgen Vorgange; 

Leipzig, 1896. (80.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 301 

78. Flechsig, Gehim und Seele; Leipzig, 1896. (80.) 

79. Froebel, Education of Man, Translated by Hailmann; 

New York, 1899. (21, 66.) 

80. , Education by Development; Int. Ed. Series. (66.) 

81. Galton, English Men of Science, Their Nature and Nur- 

ture; London, 1894. (35.) 

82. Goethe, Faust; Boston, 1899. (16.) 

83. GoLDSCHEiDER and Muller, Zur Psychologic und Patho- 

logic des Lesens; Zeitschrift filr Klinische Medicine, 
Vol. 23. (37.) 

84. Granger, Psychology; London, 1891. (19.) 

85. Grashey, Ueber Aphasie und ihre Beziehung zur Wahmeh- 

mung; Archiv. fiir Psych, und nerven Krankheit, Vol. 16. 
(37.) 

86. Groos, The Play of Animals; New York, 1898. (155.) 

87. , The Play of Man; New York, 1901. (155.) 

88. Guyau, Education and Heredity; London, 1891. (86, 91, 

214.) 

89. Hailmann, Add. and Proc, N. E. A., 1899. (65.) 

90. Hall, G. S., How to Teach Reading; Boston, 1887. (39.) 
01. , Child Study as a Basis for Psychology and Psycho- 
logical Teaching; Report of Commissioner of Education, 
1892-93. (41.) 

92. , Child Study the Basis of Exact Education; Forurriy 

Vol. 16. (41.) 

93. , Research the Vital Spirit of Teaching; Forum, 

Vol. 17. (41.) 

94. Hall, Mrs. W. S., First Five Hundred Days of a Child's 

Life; Child Study Monthly, Vol. 2. (38, 157.) 

95. Hanus, Educational Aims and Educational Values; New 

York, 1899. (68.) 

96. Harris, Herbart and Pestalozzi Compared; Ed. Rev., 

May, 1893. (225.) 

97. , Educational Creeds of the Nineteenth Centur}^, Edited 

by Lang; New York, 1900. (102.) 

98. Herbart, The Science of Education, Translated by 

H. M. and Emmie Felkin; London, 1892. (64.) 

99. , Outlines of Educational Doctrine, Translated by 

Lange; New York, 1901. (64.) 

100. Hinsdale, The Art of Study; New York, 1900. (146.) 



302 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

101. Hinsdale, Studies in Education; Chicago, 1896, (11, 

255.) 

102. , Teaching the Language Arts, Speech, Reading, Com- 
position; New York, 1896. (39.) 

103. Hodge, Nature Study and Life; Boston, 1902, (178.) 

104. Hodgson, Quoted by James; Psychology, Briefer Course; 

London, 1878. (213.) 

105. Hoffding, Outlines of Psycholog}^; London, 1892. (210.) 

106. Holmes, School Boy; Boston, 1878. (147.) 

107. Howerth, Social Aim in Education; Journ. of Fed., 

Vol. 13, Nos. 1, 2, and 3. (95.) 

108. Huxley, Education and Science; New York, 1894. (23.) 

109. Jacobi, Psychological Notes on Primary Education; 

New York, 1899. (39.) 

110. James, The Will to Believe, etc.; Nevj York and London^ 

1897. (79, 86, 89.) 

111. ■ , Principles of Psychology; New York, 1890. (81, 85^ 

86, 163, 210, 233.) 

112. , Psychology, Briefer Course; New York, 1890. (206, 

213.) 

113. , Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students 

on Some of Life's Ideals; New York, 1899. (278.) 

114. Jastrow, Some Currents and Undercurrents in Psychology; 

Psych. Rev., Vol. 8. (47.) 

115. Jevons, Principles of Science, Vol. 2; New York, 1875. 

(3.) 

116. Johnson, Samuel, In Boswell's Life of Johnson; 1847. 

(116.) 

117. Jordan and Heath, Animal Life; New York, 1901. (106.) 

118. , Animal Forms; New York, 1901. (106.) 

119. Jackman, Nature Study; Chicago, 1894. (178.) 

120. KiRKPATRiCK, Development of Voluntary Movement; 

Psijch. Rev., Vol. 6. (249.) 

121. , How Children Learn to Talk; Science, Sept., 1891. 

(38.) 

122. Ladd, Outlines of Physiological Psychology; New Yorkf 

1893. (78, 79.) 

123. , A Theory of Reality; New York, 1891. (91.;j 

124. Laurie, An Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education^ 

London and New York, 1895. (63.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 303 

125. Laurie, Institutes of Education; Edinhurg, 1892. (96, 
97, 102.) 

126. , Lectures on Language and Linguistic Method; Cam- 
bridge (England), 1890. (39.) 

127. Le Conte, Add. and Proc, N, E. A., 1895. (45, 46, 

48.) 

128. Locke, Thoughts on Education, edited by Quick; Cam- 

bridge (England), 1899. (20, 64, 78, 96, 273.) 

129. LoTi, Romance of a Child, Translated by Watkins; Chicago, 

1891. (35.) 

130. Lotze, Microcosmus ; New York, 1890. (79.) 

131. LuKENs, A Preliminary Report on the Learning of Lan- 

guage; Ped. Sem., Vol. 2. (38.) 

132. , A Study of Children's Drawings in the Early Years; 

Ped. Sem., Vol. 4. (178.) 

133. LuQUEER, Hegel as Educator; New York, 1896. (67, 142.) 

134. March, The Spelling Reform; Bureau of Education; Wash- 

ington, 1893. (39.) 

135. Maudsley, Body and Will; New York, 1884. (17, 91, 

212, 277.) 

136. McClellan and Dewey, The Psychology of Number; 

New York, 1895. (87, 151.) 

137. McMuRRY, General Method; Btoomington, Illinois, 1892. 

(152.) 

138. , Special Method in Reading; Bloomington, Illinois, 

1894. (39.) 

139. Mill, Autobiography; New York, 1887. (35, 148, 266, 

272.) 

140. Monroe, The Educational Ideal; Sijracuse, 1893. (134, 

135.) 

141. Moore, The Development of a Child; Psych. Rev., Mono- 

graph Supplement, No. 3, Oct., 1896. (157.) 

142. Morgan, Psychology for Teachers; London, 1894. (70, 

142.) 

143. , The Springs of Conduct; London, 1885. (3, 71.) 

144. , Habit and Instinct; London, 1896. (155.) 

145. Mosso, Address at the Decennial Celebration of Clark 

University, Published in the Memorial Volume. (105.) 

146. MtJLLER, The Science of Thought"; London, 1887. (236.) 

147. MtJNSTERBERG, Atlantic Monthly; May, 1900. (145.) 



304 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

148. MuNSTERBERG, Psychology and Education; Educational 

Review, Vol. 16. (42.) 

149. O'Shea, Aspects of Mental Economy; Madison, Wis- 

consin, 1901. (257.) 

150. , Relative Values in Secondary and Higher Educa- 
tion; School Review, May, 1898. (25.) 

151. , Teachers by the Grace of God; Journ. of Ped.j 

Vol. 13, No. 1. (52.) 

152. , The University Study of Education; School Review ^ 

A^ol. 8. (52.) 

153. ■ , Concerning High School Teachers; School Review f 

Vol. 10. (52.) 

154. Oppenheim, The Development of the Child; New York, 

1898. (82.) 

155. Paley, Moral Philosophy; Dublin, 1788. (97.) 

156. Payne, Contributions to the Science of Education; Ann 

Arbor, 1886. (28, 54.) 

157. Pearson, Grammar of Science; London, 1892. (4, 9, 10, 

23, 43, 108.) 

158. Perez, The First Three Years of Childhood, Translated by 

Christie; Chicago, 1899. (38.) 

159. Pestalozzi, Leonard and Gertrude, Translated by Eva 

Channing; Boston, 1885. (21.) 

160. Pfeffer, Revue Scientifique; Dec. 9, 1893. (106.) 

161. PiLLSBURY, The Reading of Words; Amer. Journ. Psych., 

Vol. 12. (37.) 

162. , A Study in Apperception; Amer. Journ. Psych., 

Vol. 8. (198, 225.) 

163. Plato, Protagoras, Translated by Wright; New York, 

1888. (17.) 

164. , The Republic, Translated by Davies & Vaughn; 

New York, 1888; also Jowett's Translation. (18, 29, 62.) 

165. Pope, The Greater Dunciad; Boston, 1875. (147.) 

166. Preyer, The Development of the Intellect, Translated by 

H. W. Brown; New York, 1890. (38, 157, 165.) 

167. Putnam, A Manual of Pedagogics; Boston, 1895. (65.) 

168. QuANTZ, Problems in the Psychology of Reading; Psych. 

Rev., Vol. 2, No. 1, Monograph Supplement. (37, 216.) 

169. Quick. Educational Reformers; New York, 1890. (20, 

21, 73.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 305 

170. Quick, Locke on Education; Camhridge (England), 1899. 

(273.) 

171. Romanes, Mental Evolution in Man; New York, 1889. 

(79.) 

172. , Mental Evolution in Animals; New York, 1884. 

(155.) 

173. Rousseau, Emile, Translated by "Worthington ; Boston, 

1885. (21.) 

174. RoYCE, Is There a Science of Education? Educational 

Review, Jan. and Feb., 1891. (11, 52.) 

175. Robertson, George Groom, Philosophical Remains; New 

York, 1896. (198.) 

176. Scudder, Literature in the Schools; Boston, 1888. (39.) 

177. Sedgwick, Enc3-clop8edia Britannica, 9th edition. Vol. 8. 

(96.) 

178. Shaav, The Employment of Motor Activities in Teaching; 

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179. , A Comparative Study of Children's Interests; Child 

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180. Shinn, Notes on the Development of a Child; University 

of California. (38.) 
181. , Biography of a Baby; Boston, 1900. (38.) 

182. Spalding, Education and the Higher Life; New Yorkf 

1894. (139.) 

183. Speer, Arithmetic; Boston, 1899. (214.) 

184. Spencer, Principles of Sociology; Neiv York, 1897. (119.) 

185. , Principles of Psychology; New York, 1873. (104, 

198, 249.) 

186. , Education; Neiu York, 1861. (22.) 

187. Stanley, The Evolution of Inductive Thought; Mind, 

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188. Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. 2. (163, 210.) 

189. Sully, Babies and Science; Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 43. 

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190. , The Child in Recent English Literature; Fortnightly 

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191. , The New Study of Children; Fortnightly Review, 

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192. , Studies of Childhood; New York, 1896. (38, 178.) 

193. . The Hmnan Mind, Vol. 2; New York, 1892. (249.) 



306 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

194. Sutton, Evolution and Disease; London, 1890. (77.) 

195. Smith, Quoted by Spencer, in Aims and Practice of Teach* 

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196. Taine, Lingual Development in Boyhood; Pop. Sci. Mo., 

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197. Tate, Philosophy of Education; New York, 1885. (70, 

136.) 

198. Thorndyke and Woodworth, Influence of Improvement 

in One Mental Function upon the Efficiency of Other 
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199. Titchener, An Outline of Psychology; Neio York, 1896. 

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201. Tolstoi, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, Translated by 

Hapgood; New York, 1886. (35.) 

202. Tracy, The Psychology of Childhood; Boston, 1894. 

(38.) 

203. ■ , The Language of Childhood; Amer. Journ. Psych., 

Vol. 6. (38.) 

204. Triplett, Dynamogenetic Factors in Pacemaking and 
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205. Tufts, Amer. Journ. of Sociolog>/, Jan., 1896. (94.) 

206. Vincent, The Social Mind and Education; New York, 

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210. Washington, LTp from Slavery, an Autobiography; New 

York, 1901. (35.) 

211. Wayland, a Memoir of the Life and Labors of Francis 

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212. Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences; London, 

1857. (43.) 

213. Wiltse, a Preliminary Sketch of the History of Child 

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215. Witmer, Analytical Psychology; Boston, 1902. (226.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 307 

216. WuNDT, Human and Animal Psychology] London, 1894. 

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217. , Physiological Psychology, Vol. 2. (198.) 

218. YoDER, Story of the Boyhood of Great Men: Ped. Sem 

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219. YouMANS, The Culture Demanded by Modem Life- New 

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220. Ziehen, Introduction to the Study of Physiological 

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1892. (78, 79, 213, 240.) 



INDEX. 



In referring to authors the Bibliography should be consulted in connection 

with this Index. 



Acquisition, as the aim of edu- 
cation, 73, 74; relation to 
Adjustment, 137-139. 

Adjustment, as the aim of 
education, 76-117; implies 
the re-creation of environ- 
ments, 99-104; man as 
master rather than slave of 
his environments, 100-102; 
the function of the school in 
developing originality and 
aggressiveness, 102-104; the 
increase of pleasure and 
diminution of pain the su- 
preme end of Adjustment, 
104-108; the traditional 
conception of pleasure in 
human life, 108-110; the 
physical the least important 
source of man's pleasures 
and pains, 111-114; pleas- 
ures and pains arising out of 
man's intellectual and ses- 
thetic nature, 115-117; rela- 
tion of Adjustment to Un- 
foldment, 133-135; relation 
to Formal Discipline, 135- 
137; relation to Acquisition, 
137-140; relation to Utility, 
140; the essential distinction 
between Adjustment and 
other aims, 140-144; Ad- 
justmeailj and interest. 146- 
153. 



Analytic tendency, its develop- 
ment in children, 177, 178. 

Apperception, as the essential 
process in learning, 223-245; 
the method seen in appre- 
hending familiar objects, 
223-225; PiUsbury on the 
apperception of words, 223; 
the method further illus- 
trated in the interpretation 
of diagrams and pictures, 
225, 226; the essential proc- 
ess seen in the learning of 
an unfamiliar object, 227- 
230; the effect of a new 
experience on an old reac- 
tive system with which it 
becomes assimilated, 230- 
232; Baldwin on assimila* 
tion of one element to others, 
230 (note) ; apperception 
among idea-complexes, 232, 
233; sagacity in the apper- 
ceptive process, 233-238,* 
James on the characteristics 
of sagacity, 233-235; the 
natural history of sagacity 
in any field, 235-238; the 
Sherlock Holmes variety of 
sagacity, 236 (note); the 
mental construction of a 
complex whole from a single 
element thereof, 238 (note)] 
syllogistic reasoning, 239- 
309 



310 



INDEX. 



244; the syllogism as the 
logical form of the adjust- 
ing process, 239; doubt in 
the adjusting process, 241- 
243; inductive reason as a 
form of apperception, 243- 
245. 
Aristotle, method in discussmg 
education, 20; educational 
doctrines that have sur- 
vived, 29, 30; on the aim of 
education, 63; on the 
methods of reproducing 
ideas, 202. 
Arnold, on a scientific educa- 
tion, 2C. 
Association, in the process of 
ler-ming, 160, 161; simul- 
taneous association in the 
retention of experience, 198- 
200; succe;:sive association, 
200-202. 
Attention, habit of, as de- 
veloped by formal training, 
276-278 
Baldwin, on adaptation to the 
social environment, 93; on 
the motor accompaniments 
of intellection, 165; on the 
function of a word in mental 
processes, 217; on the as- 
similr.tion of one element 
to others in learning, 230 
(note). 
Barnes, on children's interests, 

174-176. . 

Basedow, method of, in dis- 
cussing education, 21. 
Binet, on children's interests, 

174-176. 
Biology, scope and method of, 
2-4; the conception of life 
which it gives, 76, 77. 
Browning, on the origm of 

truth, 67. 
Butler, on adjustment to the 
spiritual environment, 94, 

95. 
Carpenter, on mterest from 



the physiological stand- 
point, 152. 
Cause, development of the 
sense of, 190-193; natural 
history of the typical ques- 
tion "What makes it rain?", 
190-193; of the typical 
question "Why does it 
thunder? ",193; the persist- 
ence throughout life of the 
effort to discover causes, 
195, 196. 
Child-Study, different opin- 
ions of the worth of, 41 ; the 
wheat and the chaff gar- 
nered together, 42 ; the con- 
dition of child-study not un- 
like that of anthropology 
and kindred sciences, 43. 
Classes or groups, the method 
of learning, 166-172; the 
complexity of the processes 
of grouping, 169, 170. 
Classical Education, different 
-\dews of the value of, 24, 25. 
Committee of Seven, on the 
aim in history teaching, 
41. 
Concept, or general idea, 
natural history of, 211-213; 
function of, in adjustment, 
212-214. 
Contiguity, in the retention 
and reproduction of ideas, 
199-201. 
Contrast, in the retention and 
re^jroduction of ideas, 202- 
204. 
Darwin, effect of the Origm of 

Species, 45. 
Davidson, on the effects of 
metaphysical speculation on 
the conduct of men, 50. 
Dewey, on the older psychol* 
ogy, 49; on Formal Disci- 
pline. 69 (note). 
Donaldson, on interest from 
the neurological standpoint, 
I 151, 152. 



INDEX. 



311 



Drudgery, in school life, 150- 
152. 

Education, Aim of, some com- 
mon views, 57-75; the 
home as an educational 
agency, 57; the street as 
an educational agency, 58; 
the playground as an educa- 
tional agency, 58; the 
school as the instrument 
par excellence of education 
in modern society, 59, 60; 
various current views re- 
specting the aim of educa- 
tion, 61; Plato's view, 62; 
Aristotle's view, 63 ; Locke's 
view, 64; views of Rous- 
seau and Herbart, 64; Un- 
foldment as the end of edu- 
cation, 65-67; the meaning 
of Unfoldment, 67-69; 
Formal Discipline as the 
end of education, 69-73; 
Dewey on Formal Disci- 
pline, 69 (note); Morgan's 
view, 71 (note) ; Vincent on 
Formal Discipline, 72; Ac- 
quisition as the aim of edu- 
cation, 73, 74 ; Utility as the 
aim of education, 74, 75; 
the aim suggested by biol- 
ogy, 76-78; by neurology, 
78-83; by present-day psy- 
chology, 84-93; the view of 
sociology and ethics, 93-98. 

Education as a Science, the 
data for, 27-56; the sur- 
vival of the fittest in educa- 
tion, 27, 28; the ^dews of 
Spencer, 28; the survival 
of some of Plato's doctrines, 
29; the mod^rnness of Aris- 
totle and Locke, 29, 30; ef- 
fective means of discrimi- 
nating truth from error, 31 ; 
difficulty of determining 
what forces have influenced 
nations, 32-34; data de- 
rived from biography, 34- 



36; the methods of the 
laboratory'- in education, 36- 
41 ; experimentation on lan- 
guage teaching as an in- 
stance, 37-39; the paucity 
of experimental data, 39; 
the nonnal school a shop not 
a laboratory, 40; the data 
gained from child-study, 41- 
51; the evolutionary point 
of view in education, 44-51 ; 
the practical value of the 
evolutionary principle in 
education, 46-48; the point 
of view which the educa- 
tionist must take, 48-51. 

Education, The Field of, 9-13; 
the traditional view of edu- 
cation as an art not a 
science, 9-11 ; similarity be- 
tween education and me- 
chanics in respect of scien- 
tific foundations, 12; the 
question which the educa- 
tionist must answer, 13; 
the requirements of effective 
method in education, 14-17; 
the methods pursued by 
educationists of the past, 
17-22; Plato's method, 17- 
19; Aristotle's method, 20; 
the methods of Erasmus, 
Rabelais, Montaigne, Locke, 
Rousseau, Basedow, P e s - 
talozzi, Froebel, 20, 21; 
methods of educationists of 
our own times, 22-26; op- 
posing views of great men, 
22-25. 

Equality, the doctrine of in 
a democracy, 122, 123; the 
meaning of equality re- 
garded from a biological 
standpoint, 124, 125; what 
the welfare of society re- 
quires, 125. 

Erasmus, method of, in dis- 
cussing education, 20. 

Ethics, its conception of man 



312 



INDEX. 



as a relational being, 96-98 ; 
Locke on the foundation of 
virtue, 96 (note). 
Experience, abridgement of, 
in learning, 210-214; 
abridgement as an econom- 
ical device, 210, 211 ; natural 
history of the concept or 
general idea, 211, 212; the 
function of the general idea 
in adjustment, 212-214; 
Hodgson on the decay of the 
uninteresting parts of ideas, 
213. 

Experience, the retention of, 
197-209; retention as es- 
sential in learning, 197; the 
method of simultaneous as- 
sociation in keeping a record 
of experience, 198-202; Pills- 
bury on simultaneous asso- 
ciation, 199; the tendency 
for certain successive se- 
ries to become simultaneous, 
200-202; Aristotle on the 
methods of reproducing 
ideas, 202; contrast in the 
retention and reproduction 
of experience, 202-204; simi- 
larity in the retention and 
reproduction of experience, 
204-209; James on simi- 
larity in the reproduction 
of ideas, 206-208. 

Force, mental, as produced by 
formal discipline, 256-265; 
the meaning of force, 256, 
257; the neurological view 
of generating force, 258-261 ; 
the testimony of experi- 
ences in daily life, 259, 
261, 262; the essential dif- 
ference between the expert 
and the tyro, 262; the doc- 
trine of the brain as a 
reservoir of energy, 262-265 ; 
waste vs. economy in mental 
functioning, 264, 265. 

Formal Discipline, as the aim 



of education, 69-73 ; Dewey 
on, 69; Morgan on, 71; 
Vincent on, 72; relation to 
Adjustment as the aim of 
education, 135-137; expo- 
sition of the doctrine, 246- 
248; the mind likened to an 
edged tool, to muscles, etc., 
247; Fouillee as a Disci- 
plinarian, 248; the doctrine 
in the light of every-day 
experience, 248-256 ; the 
principle from a physio- 
logical standpoint untrue, 
248-251; failure of the 
Disciplinarians to carry the 
doctrine to its logical con- 
clusions, 251, 252; the in- 
convertibility of competency 
and keenness in special 
fields, 252-256 ; Macaulay on 
legal acumen, 253; natural 
history of Sherlock Holmes' 
keenness, 255 (note); the 
development of mental 
force by formal discipline, 
256-264 (see Force); the 
effects of excessive special 
training, 266-268 ; Harris 
on, 267, 268; development 
of methods of thinking by 
formal discipline, 268-274 
(see Thinking) ; apperception 
by modes rather than by 
content, 269; the establish--- 
ment of habits of attacking 
things, 269; the principle 
illustrated in daily life, 270 ; 
the usefulness of a method 
developed in one field and 
employed in a different one, 
270-272; Mill on the value 
of logic as a formal study, 
272, 274; the establishment 
of mental habits by formal 
training, 275-283 (see Habit). 
Formalism, in the training 
of teachers, 5S-56; Monroe 
on, 135 (note). 



INDEX. 



313 



Fouill^e, on the value of 
science, 22, 23 ; on the value 
of classical study, 24; on 
developing virtue in ab- 
stracto, 143; as a Disciplin- 
arian, 248. 

Froebel, method of, in dis- 
cussing education, 21. 

Geometry, the scope and 
method of, 1. 

Habits, mental, the establish- 
ment of, by formal training, 
275-283; the contention of 
the Disciplinarians, 275; the 
claim disproved in the tests 
of daily life, 275, 276; the 
general character of the 
habits of perseverance, at- 
tention, etc., 276, 277; the 
doctrine that particular 
studies alone develop these 
general habits, 277, 278; 
James on the development of 
certain habits in the emo- 
tional life, 278-280; the 
complex character of every 
individual's world demand- 
ing a variety of knowledge 
and habits and sympathies, 
280-283. 

Hanus, on the aim of education, 
64. 

Harris, on formal discipline, 
267, 268. 

Herbart, on the aim of educa- 
tion, 64. 

High School, its place in a 
system of education, 131, 132. 

Hinsdale, on the olden- time 
school, 145, 146. 

Hodgson, on the decay of the 
uninteresting parts of ideas, 
213. 

Huxley, on a scientific educa- 
tion, 23. 

Individual objects, the method 
of learning, 186-172; the 
basis for discriminating, 168- 
170. 



Induction, as a form of the 
apperceptive process, 243- 
245. 
Inductive method, the require- 
ments of, 14-17; developed 
by Aristotle, 14, 15; all 
modern science founded on 
this method, 16. 

Industrial classes, needs of in 
a democracy, 126, 127; dif- 
ficulty of providing exactly 
for the needs of everv in- 
dividual, 128, 129. 

Infant, method of reacting 
upon its enviromnent, 156- 
160. 

Instinct, its nature and func- 
tion in adjustment, 154, 155. 

Interest, ignored in Formal 
Discipline and other aims, 
146-150; the pedagogue as 
chastiser of youth, 146, 147; 
Mill on the incentives to 
study in his day, 149, 150; 
Wayland on the method of 
the teacher of 40 years ago, 
149 (note); drudgery in 
school hfe, 150-152; the 
true nature of interest, 151; 
Donaldson on interest from 
the neurological standpoint, 
151, 152. 

Interests, studies of children's 
interests by Binet, Barnes, 
Shaw, 174-176; children's 
interest in animals, 176, 177. 

James, on similarity in the 
reproduction of ideas, 206- 
208; on the characteristics 
of sagacit}^, 233-235; on 
the development of certam 
habits in the emotional life, 
278-280. 

Jastrow, on the conception of 
mind as a "growth process,'' 
47. 

Language, experimentation 
upon the teaching of, 36-38. 

Language, Conventional, the 



314 



INDEX. 



function of in adjustment, 
214-222; as an element in 
abstract ideas, 214, 215; as 
an economical device, 215- 
217; Baldwin on the func- 
tion of a word in mental 
processes, 217; the function 
of language in reinstating 
moods, 218, 219; language 
without experience value- 
less, 220; language when 
rightly gained as a means of 
participating in the life of 
the race, 221, 222. 
Learning, first step in, 156- 
166; the character of the 
infant's early reactions upon 
the world, 156-160; the 
association of experiences 
in learning, 160, 161; the 
progress in learning by the 
completion of the first year, 
162, 165, 166; the old con- 
ception of vision as in itself 
giving complete knowledge 
of things, 164; the motor 
elements in learning, 165; 
the learning of individual 
objects and classes, 166-172; 
the value for adjustment of 
this learning, 171, 172; de- 
velopmental changes re- 
specting the characteristics 
apprehended in objects, 
172-178; the characteristics 
which are earliest appre- 
hended, 173; the studies 
of Binet, Barnes, and Shaw 
upon children's interests, 
174-176; children's interest 
in animals, 176, 177; the 
development of the analytic 
tendency, 177, 178; devel- 
opment of the sense of loca- 
tion, 180-190 (see Loca- 
tion)) development of the 
sense of cause, 190-192 
(see Cause) ; development 
of the sense of means, 194- 



196; retention of experience 
in learning, 197-209 (see 
Experience, Retention); the 
abridgment of experience, 
210-214 (see Experience, 
Abridgment) ; apperception 
as the essential process, 223- 
246 (see Apperception). 

Le Conte, on the leaven of 
evolution, 45, 46. 

Location, development of the 
sense of, 180-190; infant's 
sense of continuity and 
permanency of things, 181, 
182; development of the 
tendency to search for lost 
objects, 182-184; the prin- 
ciple at the bottom of the 
searching activity, 184-186; 
natural history of the typi- 
cal questions ''Where has 
it gone? ",186-188; "Where 
have you come from?", 188, 
189; ''Where have you 
been?", "Where are you 
going?", 189, 190. 

Locke, method of, in discuss- 
ing education, 20; the 
modernness of, 30; on the 
a:m of education, 64. 

Logic, formal, its value in the 
development of methods of 
thinking, 272-274. 

Macaulay, on legal acumen, 
253. 

Means, the development of the 
sense of, 194-196; natural 
history of the typical ques- 
tion, "How do trees grow?", 
194, 195. 

Mill, on the incentives to study 
in his day, 149, 150; on the 
value of logic as a formal 
study, 272-274. 

Montaigne, method of, in dis* 
cussing education, 20. 

Morgan, on formal discipline, 
71 (note). 

Neurology, indicates that mar5 



INDEX. 



315 



was designed for a relational 
life, 78, 79; the plan of the 
nervous system, 80-82; to 
provide for action, the aim, 
82, 83. 

Normal school, a shop not a 
laboratory, 40, 41. 

Payne, on the training of the 
teacher, 54. 

Pearson, on the value of a 
scientific education, 23; on 
the making of anthropology 
and kindred sciences, true 
sciences, 43; on the ratio- 
nale of social institutions, 54. 

perseverance, habit of, as 
developed by formal train- 
ing, 276-278. 

Pestalozzi, method of, in dis- 
cussing education, 21. 

Physics, scope and method of, 
2-4. 

Pillsbury, on simultaneous as- 
sociation, 198 (note); on 
the apperception of words, 
223. 

Plato, method of, in discuss- 
ing education, 18, 19; on 
the aim of education, 62-65. 

Pleasure and pain, the in- 
crease of the one and dimi- 
nution of the other as the 
supreme aim of adjustment, 
104-108; the effect of 
pleasantness and pain upon 
life processes, 105; the 
testimony of observation 
and introspection, 106; op- 
position to the doctrine 
that happiness is the end of 
effort, 107, 108; Pearson on 
the rationale of social in- 
stitutions, 103; the tradi- 
tional and current view of 
pleasure, lOS, 109; sensu- 
ality as destructive to true 
pleasure, 110, 111; man as 
capable of enjoying pleasures 
and pains other than phys- 



ical, 111-114; the pleasures 
and pains arising out of 
one's social relationships. 
114; out of his intellectual 
relationships, 115, 116. 

Pride, as developed by formal 
training 278-280. 

Professional class, needs of in 
a democracy, 129, 130. 

Psychology, present-day, in- 
dicates that education must 
fit one for an active life, 
84-93; the teleology of all 
thought and feeling, 85-87; 
the difficulty of tracking 
thoughts in a mature mind, 
87, 88; the dignity of ser- 
vice on the part of mental 
faculties, 88, 90; the pur- 
pose of so-called abstract 
thought and feeling, 90, 91; 
the condition for the motor 
expression of ideas, 91-93. 

Rabelais, method of, in dis- 
cussing education, 20. 

Reasoning, syllogistic, as a 
form of apperception, 239- 
245; as the logical method 
of the adjusting process, 239; 
the phenomena of doubt 
in adjustment, 240-243; in- 
duction as a form of the 
apperceptive process, 243- 
245. 

Re-creation of environments, as 
essential to adjustment, 99- 
103; man as master not 
slave of the world about liim, 
100; investigation as a 
function of education, 103. 

Rousseau, on the aim of edu- 
cation, 64. 

Ruling class, needs of, in a 
democracy, 129. 

Sagacity, in the apperceptive 
process, 233-238; James 
on sagacity, 233-235; the 
natural history of sagacity 
in any field, 235-237. 



316 



INDEX. 



School, its place in modem 
society, 59, 60; its place 
among primitive people, 59; 
the aim of the school — 
different opinions, both an- 
cient and modern, 61-65; 
as the servant not the 
master of society, 120-122; 
the function of the school 
in a democracy, 122; the 
way in which it must meet 
the needs of the several 
'^classes" m society, 130- 
132; Hinsdale on the olden- 
time school, 145, 146. 
Sciences, field of the several 
sciences, 1-9; the scope and 
method of geometry, 1, 2; 
the scope and method of 
physics, 2-4; the field of j 
biology, 4-6; the character 
of the sociological field, 5-9. 
Scientific education, different 
views of the value of, 22, 23. 
Shaw, on children's interests, 

174-176. 
Similarity in the retention and 
reproduction of ideas, 204- 
209. 
Social organization, as affect- 
ing adjustment, 118-132; 
''classes" as necessary in 
civilized society, 118-120; 
the school as the servant not 
the master of society, 120- 
122; the function of the 
school in a democracy, 122; 
the suppression of the ex- 
ceptional individual, 123, 
124; difference in capaci- 
ties of individuals, 124, 125; 
the distribution of rewards 
for work done by different 
members of society, 125, 
126; the education of the 
industrial classes, 126, 127; 
the difficulty of determining 
precisely what any individ- 
ual wiU need, 128, 129; the ) 



training of the ruling and 
professional classes, 129, 
130; the way in which the 
school meets the needs of 
all, 130-132. 

Sociology, scope and method 
of, 5-9; its conception of 
man as a social not an 
isolated being, 93-95; Vin- 
cent's view of the social con- 
tent of consciousness, 94; 
the views of Tufts and 
Butler, 94, 95; the teaching 
of the Republic and the 
Politics, 94; the aim of 
education which sociology 
suggests, 95. 

Spalding, on the distinction 
between learning and ef- 
ficiency, 139. 

Spencer, on the value of a 
scientific education, 22; on 
the value of classical study, 
24. 

Symbolism, in the develop- 
ment of the concept, 214- 
220; the method of ac- 
quiring symbols in order 
that they may be used 
effectively, 220, 221. 

Teacher, the practical needs 
of, 51-56; the evil effects 
of a static view of human 
nature, 51; of the learning 
of simple dogmas, 52; as a 
naturalist, 52; formalism 
in the teacher's training, 
53; Payne, on the training 
of the teacher, 54; prin- 
ciples, not something " im- 
mediately practical," are 
wanted, 54-56. 

Thinking, development of 
methods of, by formal disci- j 
phne, 268-274. 

Titchener, on the effect of 
pleasure and pain upon life 
processes, 105; on simul- 
taneous association, 199. 



INDEX. 



317 



Tufts, on the social interde- 
pendence of men, 94, 95. 

Unfoldment, as the aim of 
education, 65-69; endorsed 
by Plato, 65; by Froebel, 
66; by Hegel, 67; the im- 
plications of Unfoldment, 
67-69; the practical char- 
acter of Unfoldment, 6S; 
relation to Adjustment as 
aim of education, 133-135. 

University, its place in a 
system of education, 131, 
132. 



Utility, as the aim of educa- 
tion, 74, 75; relation to 
Adjustment as the aim of 
education, 140. 

Vincent, on Formal Discipline, 
72; on the social content of 
consciousness, 94. 

Vision, its function in the 
process of learning, 164, 165. 

Wayland, on the method of the 
teacher of 40 years ago, 149 
(note). 

Whewell, on the initial period 
of any science, 43- 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 



In the following Questions and Exercises it is the aim to 
direct the student's attention to the really essential points con- 
sidered in the different chapters of the text, and to lead him to 
critically examine the conclusions reached in the light of his 
own experience, and to test them in their application to the 
practical situations of daily life. 

CHAPTER r. 

1. What phenomena does geometry aim to describe ? (pp. 1-2) 
Is its field exactly determined? Could the mathematician 
and the physicist, say, ever get into a dispute over the in- 
vestigation of any problem? The mathematician and the 
sociologist or the psychologist? How does the geometrician 
investigate his problems? Will his method give reliable 
results? Do you feel confident of the validity of every 
proposition in geometry you have ever learned? Why? 

2. What phenomena does physics aim to describe? (p. 2) Is 
its field exactly bounded? Could the physicist ever get 
into trouble with other investigators over the boundaries of 
his subject? Will the physicist's method of investigation 
give reliable results? Has he investigated in an exact way 
all the problems in his field? (p. 3) Upon what basis can 
the physicist make propositions about worlds remote from 
ours? Do you have perfect faith in his assertions? Why? 
Have you known of supposed established propositions in 

I* 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

physics to be refuted by more careful and extended experi- 
ment? 

3. What phenomena does the biologist aim to describe ? (p. 4) 
Is his field exactly bounded? Why? Has he a method of 
studying his problems that will yield reliable results? 
What special difficulties does he encounter that the mathe- 
matician and physicist are not troubled with ? (pp. 4 and 5) 
Do you have confidence in the principles of biology you have 
learned ? Why ? 

4. Discuss the field and the method of sociology. (6-9) Is 
the physicist ever a prophet or a moralist, indicating how 
things in his field ought to be? Is the sociologist? Does 
this complicate his problems? Does it render his results 
less reliable ? Why ? 

CHAPTER II. 

1. What is the highest ambition of the scientist? (14) What 
vitiates ordinary opinion and judgment? (14-15) How 
would Aristotle avoid this? (15) What then are the re- 
quirements for effective method in exploiting any field? 
(16) Discuss the effect of prejudice on men's reasoning 
and their beliefs, and illustrate with concrete examples 
drawn from your daily experiences. 

2. Was Plato genuinely scientific in his educational theories? 
(17-20) Give some of his doctrines, and show how he 
reached them. (18-19) ^0 you feel they are genuinely 
valuable ? Why ? 

3. Was Locke a scientist? (20) Rousseau? Basedow? Pes- 
talozzi? Froebel? Look up some of their doctrines, and 
comment upon them, in the light of our discussion on 
scientific method in education. 

4. Why do men like Fouillee and Spencer differ so widely in 
their educational opinions? (22-23) Do we find great 
disparity of opinion among eminent men? (24-25) Why? 
Name educational doctrines which are to-day defended by 
some men and attacked by others. Why should there be 

2* 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES, 

this disagreement? Is this disagreement peculiar to educa- 
tion? Compare education in this respect with political 
economy; with medicine; with agriculture. 
5. State some educational doctrines in which you believe, 
and see if you can give satisfactory reasons for your belief. 
State in as great detail as possible how you have reached 
these beliefs. State your educational creed to some of 
your fellows, and see whether they endorse 3/our views. 
If there is difference of opinion, endeavor to account fully 
for it. 

CHAPTER III. 

1. What is meant by the survival of the fittest in Education? 
(27-28) Are principles of education that have been 
believed in and practised for ages genuinely scientific? 
Would the logician and the evolutionist differ on this point? 
Why? With whom do you sympathize? 

2. Mention some principles that have survived the wreck of 
ages. (29-30) Do you have faith in these doctrines your- 
self? Do you think all people have faith in them? Give 
reasons for youi answer. 

3. Could a principle be scientific that had not been estab- 
lished by deliberate experiment? (31) Is this true in 
physics? botany? sociology? psychology? Can we get 
anything of value for a science of education from the edu- 
cational systems of different nations? (32-34) Mention 
some principles to be gained from this source, and say why 
they are entitled to scientific rank. 

4. What is the value of data gained from biography? (34-36) 
What difficulties are encountered in the use of these data? 
Mention any educational principles to be gained from this 
source. 

5. What progress is being made in the experimental study of 
education? (36-39) Mention some subjects that have been 
studied experimentally. Can we rely upon the results? 
Would you attach value to any principles of method that 
ha^ not been established by experiment? 

3* 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

6. What is the Child-Study movement? (41-42) Is it genu- 
inely effective in its method? What is said of the initial 
period of any science? (42-43) Mention some of the 
educational principles derived from child-study, and say 
whether they seem to be of scientific value. 

7. What is meant by the "Evolutionary Point of View"? (44-45) 
Of what service is this to a science of education? (46-47) 
What conception of education has evolution given us? (48- 
50) Will one be on safe ground if he constructs educa- 
tional principles in harmony with the general principles of 
evolution ? Why ? 

8. What is the chief practical need of the teacher? (51) Should 
the teacher place reliance on a few simple, practical dogmas 
regarding the work of the classroom? (52-53) Should 
the teacher acquire a love for truth for its own sake? (55) 
What, then, is the best thing a teacher can get from his 
Study of the principles of teaching? 



CHAPTER IV. 

1. What has the term Education denoted in the past? (57) 
Does it mean the same to-day? Is the home an educa- 
tional agency? (57-58) The street? (58) The play- 
ground? (58-59) Have you been influenced by each of 
these agencies? Give some illustrations. 

2. How does the school differ from these other agencies? (59) 
Do primitive people need a school? (59) Why? Is it 
different with civilized people? (59) Why? Could a 
man get on in modem life if he had never attended school? 
What would the school give him that he could not gain else- 
where ? 

3. What are some of the most common views of the aim of the 
school? (61) Do you endorse any of these aims? Have 
you an aim of your own different from these? Be pre- 
pared to defend it. 

4. What was Plato's cim? (62) Do you like his view? Give 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

Stein's view. (63) Just what does this mean to you ? Do 
you approve of it ? 

5. Give Aristotle's view. (63) Compare it with Plato's. 
Discuss the aim of education stated by Locke. (63-64) 
By Rousseau and Herbart. (64) Do any of these satisfy 
you? Be explicit in your criticism or commendation. 

6. What is the doctrine of Unfoldment? (65) Upon what 
conception of human nature is it based? (66) Do you like 
Browning's conception of the origin of truth? (67) For 
what end do mental faculties and powers exist, according 
to this view? (67-68) Does Unfoldment take account of 
"practical" needs at all? (68-69) Does this aim of Unfold- 
ment appeal to you? Could you use it in working out an 
educational programme ? 

7. What is the doctrine of Formal Discipline? (69-72) What 
do the Disciplinarians wish to accomplish in school work? 
Is the aim indicated by Morgan (footnote, p. 71) different 
from the aim of Formal Discipline? Does the aim of 
Formal Discipline please you? 

8. What is the aim of Acquisition? (73-74) Is this aim held 
by people to-day ? What do you think of it ? 

9. Finally, what is the doctrine of Utility? (74-75) Do you 
feel any deficiencies in such an aim ? 

CHAPTER V. 

I. What is the modem conception of the nature of life ? (76-77) 
What consideration has led to the preservation of the eye? 
the hand ? etc. Is there any part of man's body that has not 
been determined by the needs of adaptation ? Is there any 
organ that exists for the sake of existence merely ? 

a. What does the tenure of office of any member depend upon ? 
(77-78) Give examples. How do people who are not com- 
pelled to use their muscles preserve them from degenera- 
tion? Is the human race, as a matter of fact, degenerating 
physically in any respect? Is this a disadvantage on the 
whole ? 

5* 



QUKHTIONH AND lOXIOIlCrslOS. 

3. Wlmt aim of cdiicition is ..iij'j'; ;,lr<| I»y ilic arrhitcctiirc of 
llic nervous syslcm i' (78 83) (iivc in <l(t;iil llic |)!;m of 
coiislnuiioii of (Ik- system as a whole (Ho) and of tlie n( rve- 
Ct'll. (Ho Hi) Do you feel we luv. warninled in drawinj^ 
any inference* respedinf^ llie nahirc and finiclion of mind 
from the arranjj;ement and functioning of (lie ik rvous syHtcm ? 
Wliy? Do llie aclions of children Ixar out ihe neuroloj^ical 
su^KeHtion? (82) If we cannot trace every stimulus out 
into action, is that conclusive evidence that it is not ex- 
pressed? (83) Why? 

4. What does |)resenl day i)sycholo/ry suj^gest reji;ardinR the 
relation of mental and motor factors in Imman life? (H4 H5) 
How does this relate to the ahn of education? Do you 
feel that all impressions nuist he exi)resse{l? Give evi- 
dences. 

5. What is the function in human life of iien cption, memory, 
etc.? (85-87) Have you any th()ujj;hts or feelings that are 
not headed toward the eiiviiomnent ? if so, name one or 
more. 

d. Why has mental faculty been develo|)ed in the race? (87 >^H) 
Has the ])lan been departed from in human life? (88-90) 
Is this concej)tion an unworthy one, do you think? Why? 
What is the function of the True, the Heautiful, and the 
Good in Iif<? (OO^oO C^)uun(•nt on this view. 

7. What is essential in order that ideas may be exjjressed in 
conduct? ((;i c)^) Can you think of any other plan that 
would w«)rk in the world? Does this |)lan work well? 
Can you think of any exceptions to it? 

8. What view of luunaii nature does sociology give us? (Q3-05) 
How would this view intluence education? (<;5 <;6) What 
view does ethics give? (96-()8) Could a man be ethical if 
he bore no relation to his fellows? Is he the most ethital 
man who withdraws from the world and lives in isolation? 

9. What tlu n is the aim of education suggested by modern 
science ? 



QIJKSTIONH AND KXIORCISES. 



CHAI'TKK Vr. 

1. What is the mfranin^^ oi flj<: t< rm AfljuHfmcnt? ^99) Could 
•tatic things f>ea)mo adjusUrl (/> <;i(h otficr? (99) In 
adjustment, w})if;h is tin; adju:)f.inj^ factor, th<; indivirlual 
or the, cnvironrnrnti' oris tli'-, j>roo ,vj a mutual on*;? Cau 
man }>c satisfutd witli his cnvironru* nt;^ in lh( ir "raw state" i* 
(lOO) What then is the really important faelor in afljust- 
ment? (101) Show Ijow this <;on(>j/tion aj^jJi' s U) the 
affairs of daily lif<-.. 

2. Js it suf/iei* fit for adjustment for one to l>< (orne j;oH/i<KH< d 
of all the rao; known at any [x:riod, and sfoj; there i' fjo/- 
103J l)h(:\ys.i tlje j^rojx/^ition, 'ilie seho<>l muiU make 
the pupil original, inventiv<:. Should education stimulate 
Investigation? (103-104; Why? Is the j/rin(,iple put info 
praetiu; in the .schools to day ? 

3. What is the supreme end of adjustment? C/04 irjrj What 
arf; the effects of pleasure and pain uiK>n human life? Oo«5) 
Can you think of in.stano s when: {>ain might he uj^huilding? 
What is the evidenu; that the S';curing of pi* asure anrl 
avoidana: of |;ain are the supreme ends of human activity? 
(/o5-;o6; Arc these unworthy enrJs? Why? 

4. What an: the varieties of jJeasure in human life? ^08 no) 
Js S';n.'>uality true pleasure? Is true |>l<:asure always up- 
building? always moral? Nam<; sf>m/: excrptions, if i/m- 
flihli-. What do you a>nsider to he th/: most vital form of 
pleasure in human life? Just what is meant f>y tf^stfjetic 
pleasure? (113-1/4) Social fJ'asure? (ii/\) int/llectual 
pleasure? (115-/ /6^ bo you ex(>cnena; each r>f thev: 
evtry day? Winch rno.-it proniinently ? Which deter- 
mines your tia];pineas most largely? 

CffAI'J KR VJI. 

1. Wliat i'-i mf-ant l^y *'claH:v:;i" in tJie v;eial organism? (j/8) 
Are cla// 'i nea::/,ary? Why? (/ 19-/20; Should the ?vchrx;l 
proa:ed on the drjctrine that there ought n/it U> Ix: classf:M? 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

^120-122) How reconcile the doctrine of classes with the 
doctrine that all men are born free and equal? (122-123) 
Should pupils be regarded as equal in the school? (123-124) 
How will differences in capacity among people manifest 
themselves in modern society? (124-125) Should the 
school give as much attention to the talented as to the 
mediocre pupil? 

2. What is the first class that must be provided for in our 
schools? (126) What are the needs of this class? (126- 
127) Can we tell exactly what will be the needs of an 
individual? (128) Can we tell approximately? Could you 
do this in the high school you know best ? 

3. What is meant by the ruling and professional classes? (129) 
What are their needs? Does society need these classes? 
Should the state educate its rulers and professional men? 
(131-132) Why? Do the students in the high schools, 
normal schools, and universities repay the citizens of the 
state for their education? How? 



CHAPTER VIII. 

I. What is the relation of Adjustment to Unfoldment? (133) 
Also Self-realization? Would a teacher who took Adjust- 
ment for his aim be apt to employ somewhat different mate- 
rials and methods from one who followed the aim of Unfold- 
ment? (134-135) What effect does the aim of Unfoldment 
exert upon the theory and practice of the kindergarten? 
Were you taught any studies simply for unfoldment of your 
mind? 

3. What is the relation of Adjustment to Discipline? (135-136) 
Would an educational regimen founded on the doctrine of 
Formal Discipline necessarily meet the demands of Adjust- 
ment? (136-137) Might it do so? Mention examples of 
work done in the name of Formal Discipline that does not j 
meet the needs of Adjustment? Were you taught any- * 
thing for Discipline merely? If so, what have you gained 

from it? 

8* 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

3. What is the relation of Adjustment to Acquisition? (138- 
139) Just what is the essential distinction between these 
aims? Has the aim of Acquisition played any part in your 
education? What value do you attach to isolated and 
formal facts in any field ? 

4. Finally, what is the relation of our aim of Adjustment to 
Utility? (140) How does it dififer from Utility? 

5. What then, in summary, is the vital distinction between 
Adjustment and all other aims? (140-143) What is the 
meaning of dynamic as contrasted with static education? 
Which variety do you think is most prominent about us 
to-day? Have you noticed any change in recent times? 
Indicate specific changes that are taking place. 

6. How would men like Fouillee develop courage, obedience, 
and similar virtues? (143) Do you think it is possible to 
develop any virtue in ahstracto? How does the aim of 
Adjustment bear upon this matter? 

7. Show how our aim would make the teaching of any subject^ 
as elocution, purposeful and definite. (144) Illustrate the 
principle with other examples. 

8. Our aim is a rather new one; what shall be said of the 
olden-time school? (144-146) Do you feel that past work 
and conditions are good enough for the present? Why? 

9. What is the relation of Adjustment to Interest in the school- 
room? (146-150) Should a pupil have a good deal of 
drudgery in his school work? (150) Why? Just what is 
the meaning and what are the implications of Interest? 
(151-153) Is it sound reasoning to say that the great men 
of any age owe their greatness to the schools of the times ? 

10. Has your school work been drudgery to you? Or have 
you found pleasure in it? Which has profited you more, 
studies pursued as drudgery (do not confuse drudgery with 
work), or because of inherent interest? Be specific in your 
answer. Will one work harder at tasks that are of interest 
to him than at tasks that he hates? Illustrate the prin- 
ciple with instances from child-life. 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 



CHAPTER IX. 

1. What is the very first requisite in attaining adjustment? (154) 
Will given stimulations in the case of an infant always 
produce certain definite responses? (154-155) How may 
we account for this? What is the value of instinct in adjust- 
ment? (156) Can we improve instinctive processes, like 
walking, winking, etc., by training? Mention some promi- 
nent instincts with which we have to deal in the high schooJ. 

2. What is the nature of the infant's first reactions upon the 
world? (157-158) What is the first evidence that the infant 
is really learning} (159-160) WhaX does learning mean, 
then? What progress has the child made in his learning 
by the completion of the first year? (162) 

3. What is meant by the "sensational" period in the child's 
learning? (163) The "perceptional" period? How is a 
percept built up? (163-165) What part do motor element's 
play in our ideas? (165) Suppose the motor cerebral areas 
controlling the hands should be entirely destroyed, would 
this affect one's ideas? If so, how? If the vocal areas 
should be destroyed, would one lose the power of imaging 
words? State the principle involved. 

4. What sort of adjustment does this first stage of learning 
give? (165-166) What is the relation of the learning of 
individuals to the learning of classes? (166-167) Show 
this relation in your own learning in any subject. 

5. What determines whether a particular thing will be learned 
as an individual? (167-168) Illustrate the principle by 
instances from your own daily experience. Do you see the 
bearing of this principle upon teaching? 

6. What is the effect of broadened experience upon the classi- 
fication and grouping of objects? (169-170) Illustrate the 
principle with instances from your own daily life. What 
effect has your school life had upon your classification of 
men and things? 

7. What is the first requisite for adjustment ? (171) What is the 
Talue of reacting toward a group as one has learned to react 

10* 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

toward some individual thereof? What is one striving to 
do always in a new situation? (171-172) Why? Give 
illustrations of the principle from your own present experi- 
ences. 

8. Is there change with development respecting the character- 
istics apprehended in objects? (172-173) What is the 
meaning of this change? What are the characteristics, 
speaking generally, which are apprehended at different 
stages in the individual's development? (174-177} Does 
the child early show an interest in true analysis? (177-178) 

9. See if you can trace the changes which have taken place in 
your interest in some of the familiar things of daily life, as 
the animal and plant world, your parents, comrades, etc., 
etc. Try to state what characteristics of men and things 
concern you most vitally in your present stage of develops 
ment. 



CHAPTER X. 

1. What is the effect of any stimulus on the organism? (179) 
What is the requisite for survival discussed in this section? 
(179-180) Illustrate the principle by examples taken from 
your own daily life. 

2. Why does the child ask such a question as, ''Where is my 
hat?" (180-183) Trace the natural history of such a ques- 
tion (181-183) Do you ask any questions of this general 
character for the same fundamental reason that the child 
does? Illustrate concretely. 

3. How will a young child adjust himself to a picture? (184- 
186) WhaV principle does this illustrate? Why do you 
not do as the child does ? 

4. Trace the genesis of such a question as ''Where has the sun 
gone?" Why does not the adult ordinarily ask such a 
question? Do some adults continue to ask the question, 
or ones similar to it? Why? Are you now in your daily 
life asking questions similar in principle to this? Give 

examples. 

II* 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

5. What is the meaning of curiosity? (187) Why do we say 
children are curious? Are you now curious about some 
things ? Why not about the things which concern the child ? 
What is one essential requisite for curiosity? (187-188) 
Are your friends curious about the same things that you 
are? 

6. Trace the genesis of such a question as this: "Where has 
mamma been?" (189) 

7. What is the natural history of such a question as, " What 
makes the sun shine?" (190-191) Does the child at the 
outset have a sense of cause or effect? Does one have a 
sense of the causes of phenomena with which he is un- 
familiar? Illustrate. 

8. Trace the natural history of such a question as, "Why does 
God make it rain?" (193) 

9. Trace the genesis of the sense of means, as denoted by the 
question, "How do trees grow?" (194-195) 

to. Are children more eager than adults to discover causes and 
effects, means, etc.? (195-196) Are you as interested in 
these things now as you ever were ? Why do we say children 
are so inquisitive, contrasting them in this respect with 
adults? 



CHAPTER XI. 

1. What is meant by retention of experience? (197) Is re- 
tention essential to adjustment? Why? 

2. What is the first method of keeping a record of experience? 
(198-199) Give illustrations. How is adjustment pro- 
moted by this method ? 

3. What is the second method of keeping a record of expe- 
rience? (200-202) Illustrate. How is adjustment pro- 
moted by this method? Which of these methods is most 
prominent in your own present experiences ? Which method 
is employed in your various studies ? 

4. What is said of the method of contrast ? (202-204) Would 
adjustment be promoted if one thought of things by con- 

12* 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

trast? If you think so, give instances. Do you think one 
should teach things as contrasted with one another? Why? 

5. What is said of the method of similarity ? (204-209) Will 
adjustment be promoted by this method? Give reasons 
for your answer. Is it a prominent method of thinking in 
your own daily life? Why? 

6. What does effective adjustment demand as experiences 
multiply? (210) What really is the process of abridgment? 
(211) What is the natural history of the general notion or 
concept or abstract idea? (21 1-2 14) Give illustrations of 
the process of acquiring general notions taken from your 
learning in your different studies. 

7. What part does conventional language play in the develop- 
ment of abstract ideas? (214-215) How does language 
meet the needs of economy in adjustment? (215-217) Show 
how words come in time to arouse only moods or tones of 
the organism. (218-219) Give illustrations of this process 
from the experiences of your daily life. 

8. Does the symbolizing tendency increase or decrease with 
development? (220) What is essential in order that verbal 
symbols may be made of service ? (220) 

9. If language plays so important a part in adjustment, why 
not put the child at once to learning the dictionary? (220) 
Is it essential for adjustment that one should follow the 
words he hears or reads into their most detailed concrete 
meanings? (221-222) Have you ever learned words which 
you could not translate into concrete terms? If so, has 
such learning proved of any avail to you? 



CHAPTER XII. 

I. What is the method of adjusting oneself to some familiar 
object? (223-225) Illustrate by examples taken from your 
studies. Just what is the psychological process in such 
adjustment ? 

a. What is the meaning of apperception ? (224) 

13* 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

3. What principle is illustrated in one's recognizing the figures 
on p. 226 ? Does one really see a tree ? A man ? A duck's 
head? 

4. What principle is illustrated by the experiment indicated 
on pp. 227-228? Give examples illustrating the same 
principle, and taken from your present experiences. 

5. What psychological process does one go through in "demon- 
strating" for the first time any geometrical proposition? 
(229) Is every new thing in any field whatsoever learned 
according to this process ? Illustrate by instances. 

6. What is the effect of new experiences upon one's mental 
operations? (230-232) Is this effect determined in all in- 
stances and in every detail by the needs of adjustment? 
Give instances to substantiate your argument. 

7. Is apperception concerned only with the disposition of 
absolutely new experiences? (232-233) With what in your 
present life is apperception primarily concerned? 

8. What is the meaning of sagacity? (233) What does it 
require, according to James? (234-235) What does sagacity 
really depend upon? (235-238) Pick out some person 
you know whom you regard as sagacious, and strive to 
account in detail for his sagacity. Is he sagacious in respect 
of all matters ? 

9. What is the method of syllogistic reasoning? (239) Can 
you discover that you adjust yourself to situations according 
to this method ? Does the child make use of the syllogism 
in his adjustment? (240-242) What is the relation of 
apperception to syllogistic reasoning? 

IP. What is the nature of doubt? (242-243) Do you experience 
doubt in any of the situations of daily life? Why? Just 
what process is your mind going through to relieve the 
doubt? Have you ever solved any doubts? If so, just 
how? 

11. What is the method of inductive reasoning? (243-245) 
Must we always deal with future situations in the light of 
past experience ? Why ? 

12. Say then whether we adjust ourselves to all situations what- 

14* 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 

soever according to the method of apperception as described 
in the text. If there are exceptions, name them. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

1. State the doctrine of formal discipline. (246) How have 
people arrived at such a doctrine? (247) Is it a common 
thing to explain mental phenomena in terms of physical 
objects and phenomena? Why? Give some familiar con- 
ceptions of the mind based on physical objects or phenomena. 

2. Is the physiological conception of formal training sound? 
(248-250) What really determines efficiency in muscular 
action? (250) Under just what conditions can the power 
gained from one form of muscular activity be utilized in a 
diflferent kind of activity? 

3. Do the Formal Disciplinarians carry their doctrine to its 
logical conclusion? (251-252) What evidence bearing on 
this point may be gained from observations in daily life? 
(253) Discuss the proposition: "Keenness is a special 
matter." (254-256) If you could seclude a man from daily 
life and train him on grammar, and then put him among 
men, could he adjust himself readily? Would the principle 
hold for special training of any kind? Do you see people 
in daily life who illustrate the principle to a certain extent/ 
Do you see exceptions to the principle ? If so, explain. 

4. What is the meaning of "mental force"? (256-257) Can 
energy be developed by formal training? (257-260) Why 
can the specialist work at his specialty much longer and 
with better success than he can at a new task? (260-262) 
Why does a novice waste energy? Have you observed in 
your own life that new studies are relatively quite fatiguing? 
How does your answer bear upon the doctrine of formal 
training? 

CHAPTER XIV. 

I. What is the effect of excessive special training? (266-268) 
Great specialists are said to be almost universally absent- 

15* 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

minded; can you explain this fact in the light of our present 
discussion ? 

What is meant by developing "methods of thinking" by 
formal discipline? (268) In what sense is the doctrine 
true ? (269) Could a psychologist use the method developed 
by the study of geometry? (270-271) Is the principle 
universal in its application? Would the method of algebra 
be of service in physics and all applied science? (270-272) 
Is formal logic of service in the reasonings of daily life? 
(272-274) Would a man understand people or nature 
better because he studied formal logic? Stealing apples 
employs all the faculties of the mind; how would it do to 
make this a branch of instruction? Discuss the principle 
involved. 

The Disciplinarians lay special stress upon the development 
of mental habits by formal training; discuss their proposi- 
tion. Have you found that some one formal study has been 
of particular value in developing your habits of perseverance 
and the like? 

Can we train courage, pride, etc., by formal exercise? (278- 
280) 

What caution should be kept in mind in discussing formal 
discipline? (280-283) W^ould the Disciplinarians have a 
broad or a narrow curriculum ? 

16* 



3477 



